Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage and his most high-profile defector Ann Widdecombe have been pictured together today as they begin their bid to woo voters ahead of the European elections in May.
The pair posed for pictures outside Europe House, the European Commission’s head office in the UK, on Wednesday evening.
Welcoming Ms Widdecombe to the party, Mr Farage said: ‘I think she’s doing a brave thing, and she’s doing the right thing, and she’s doing it for, I think, the most important principle in terms of what we are as a country, certainly in our lifetimes and probably for centuries in many ways.
‘This is about how the world views us. Are we a democracy? Do we have a bond of trust between the people and parliament? So, this really matters.’
Leader of the Brexit Party Nigel Farage with former Tory minister Ann Widdecombe, who has defected from the Conservatives to join the Brexit Party, in Westminster, London, today
Nigel Farage and Ann Widdecombe posed for pictures outside Europe House, the European Commission’s head office in the UK, on Wednesday evening.
Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage arrives on an open top bus for a walkabout and rally in Clacton-on-Sea, Essex
Nigel Farage and Ann Widdecombe, both ardent Brexiteers, share a joke today before Ms Widdecombe officially announces joining the Brexit Party
Former Tory stalwart Widdecombe said earlier today her new leader should be on a pedestal with Margaret Thatcher.
The former minister, who was a Tory member for 55 years and appeared on Strictly in 2010, has put retirement on hold because she believes Theresa May and Parliament have betrayed the 17.4million who voted to leave the EU.
Paying tribute to the former UKIP leader’s political record she said: ‘Nigel Farage has been more successful than any politician other than Margaret Thatcher in my lifetime in getting his agenda through, and he’s done this from outside Westminster’.
She has pledged to ‘campaign vigorously’ for the Brexit Party in the upcoming European elections in May and will stand against Boris Johnson’s sister Rachel and Jacob Rees-Mogg’s sister Annunziata in the South West.
She told Good Morning Britain: ‘I’m on a mission. We need to send a seismic shock to both parties that the electorate have had enough. Just get it done. The cloth ears in Parliament are not hearing us. If we win an overwhelming majority this will send a shock wave and MPs will have to listen. This is not a protest vote, far from it. It is a means of trying to galvanise Westminster into getting this issue dealt with’.
The 71-year-old has joined Mr Farage’s new party to try to get Britain out of the EU – and hopes that more big names will defect from the Tories and Labour.
She said: ‘I do hope that more people will follow me, from both parties. When I was 21 I first voted for the Conservative party and I’m 71 now and have done nothing else in between. Leaving has been a total shock for me but I’m sure this is right’.
Miss Widdecombe, who was a prisons minister under John Major, has said Theresa May is the worst Prime Minister since Anthony Eden and in a message for the Tory leader she said: ‘Ask yourself what keep you up to date with all the technological have been doing for the last three years other than losing our majority, giving into Juncker at every turn, instead of simply turning round to Juncker and saying to him, in a language he can understand, ‘Nous allons, monsieur.’ – French for ‘we go’.
Ann Widdecombe has left the Tories after she campaigned hard for Brexit and was appalled by the failure to deliver on the Article 50 commitment to leave on March 29
The defection of a former Tory minister is another huge coup for Nigel Farage and his new Brexit Party
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Asked if she blames Theresa May for the crisis, she said: ‘Oh yes, I think things could have been handled completely differently. It is not just her, Jeremy Corbyn has been playing a very cynical game. In these circumstances, the national good must come first. We are talking now about a prolonged process which is damaging britain and damaging our reputation abroad’.
Miss Widdecombe had been rumoured to be considering leaving the party after she campaigned hard for Brexit and was appalled by the failure to deliver on the Article 50 commitment to leave on March 29.
She said: ‘There are millions of people who voted to leave. We have a majority in the country who demanded Brexit and a majority in Parliament who want to remain and will not respect that’.
She continued: ‘There is now a huge disillusionment amongst the population with its Parliament’.
Asked about the border in Northern ireland and the threat Brexit poses to the Good Friday Agreement, she said: ‘The EU has borders with non-EU countries, it’s got a border with Switzerland… it hasn’t resulted in the sort of pictures that people are painting with what’s going to happen in Northern Ireland. There is already a border there, a legally-recognised border, the question is going to be how it’s going to be policed in terms of customs and immigration and there are lots of proposals for that that do not involve a return to the situation that we used to have. It’s being used as a red herring in order to disrupt the Brexit process.’
The announcement that Ms Widdecombe will contest the South West region sets up the mouth-watering prospect of the election’s most fearsome war of words, between several of its most high-profile and uncompromising candidates.