‘Thank you, Andy’: Farage gloats as Burnham reopens Brexit fight

LONDON — Nigel Farage told Andy Burnham to “bring it on” if he wants to fight a general election on rejoining the European Union.

The Reform UK leader, a veteran Brexiteer, claimed in a speech on Thursday that the British prime minister has given him the “biggest boost in my career” by reopening the EU debate.

Burnham used his first conference address as Labour leader this week to open up the possibility of Britain trying to rejoin the bloc it left after the 2016 referendum.

Polling has suggested a shift in public support towards rejoining the EU since then — but it remains a deeply divisive issue in U.K. politics. 

Farage claimed that Burnham will be “in for a shock” — and tried out his arguments against trying to rejoin the bloc.

Those include a claimed £25 billion annual price tag for re-entry, a wave of immigration under freedom of movement, and a claim that Britain would be forced to join the Euro.

Each of these will doubtless be disputed by the government if Burnham does choose rejoining as one of several options he’s floated for a reboot of European ties after a general election.

But it shows the attack lines that Farage would relish fighting a campaign on. 

“It’s just so contradictory,” the Reform UK boss told supporters at Doncaster racecourse.

“He says he wants to unite the country,” Farage said of Burnham. “A second referendum will divide the country bitterly in a way perhaps we’ve never seen before.

“If Andy Burnham — the ‘King of the North’ — wants a fight in Doncaster and the Red Wall with me on rejoining the European Union, then bring it on, I say.”

The choice of Doncaster for the speech was no coincidence. The northern city strongly voted to leave the EU, and lies in the so-called “Red Wall” that was once Labour’s industrial heartlands.

“He might have just given me the biggest boost in my career I’ve ever had. Thank you, Andy,” Farage added.

Return to campaigning

The Reform leader used the speech to kick off a promised stretch of constant campaigning.

Farage acknowledged he had been “relatively absent” from the limelight during a summer in which his party has been dogged by questions over the probity of donations to Reform.

He launched what he dubbed a “100 Days to Save Britain Tour” — billing it as the start of Reform’s general election campaign.

“And I will be out on the road every week between now and the general election, whether it happens this year or next spring or in three years’ time, we are back out actively campaigning and fighting,” Farage said.

A spokesperson for the Reform leader promised he’d be making stops on this tour “at least twice a week” up until the election — barring holiday periods. 

Farage still believes an election will be called as early as the spring, but it’s in Burnham’s power to call one as late as August 2029, and the prime minister has spent the past few days publicly damping down expectation of one.