The Brexit Party represent nothing – apart from getting fat salaries

Tim Richards

The Brexit party is the first virtual political party – so vague that it is difficult to know what they really want, except to become members of a European Parliament that they are opposed to.

They are asking people to vote for them without explaining what a vote for them would actually mean in real life.

They have offered no solutions, even on the central issue after which their party is named. The whole problem with Brexit is that the public, and politicians, can’t decide what Brexit they want.

By refusing to publish a manifesto before the election Nigel Farage is saying “Trust me”. Not trust me to do this or that – just trust me to “do something about Brexit”, but what is never explained.

All we do know is that they will receive fat salaries for doing very little at all, judging by their past. Those who were UKIP MEPs had the worst voting record in the European Parliament.

UKIP MEPs turn up to fewer votes than any other party in Europe – just 62.3% of votes before Brexit.

However, a majority of the remaining members of their group did make themselves available when one important item was on the agenda – a debate about their entitlements after Brexit, such as their pensions.

Limbo

What is strange about the Brexit party is that they pretend to be anti-elitist people representing the ordinary voters when are in reality an elite of fat cats doing very well from their support.

When he was the UKIP MEP in the last session of the European Parliament, Nigel Farage’s salary was around £64,000 per year and when you add in his wife’s salary, the Farage household has access to around £109,000 a year and that’s in addition to expenses.

It is reported that he took £2million in expenses and allowances over a ten-year period from 1999 to 2009 and we know that he has made about £3.75m over the past 15 years.

What did he do for this tidy pay packet? Well, in reality, Mr Farage only turned up to 40.7 per cent of all the possible roll-call votes between July 2014 and May 2016 which placed him 745th out of 746 MEPs from across the different EU countries on the European Parliamentary voting register.

This might be why the Brexit Party offers no solutions on Brexit – holding the UK in a perpetual state of limbo between electing them to office but not actually leaving works out very well for them.

Opposition

If Nigel Farage was really opposed to the European Parliament why did he go there and pretend to represent ordinary people without doing any such thing?

If the Brexit party now expect us to respect their sincerity of their opposition why did those who were UKIP representatives accept the salary of being an MEP and rake in the massive expenses that went with it?

One question none of the media seems to ask them is if they are so anti-European Union why don’t they refuse to take any money at all? Why not boycott it? Why don’t they stay at home and never cross the English channel if they hate it so much? It would make more sense than increasing their carbon footprint.

If they had a real ideological opposition to the EU, couldn’t they – as Sinn Feinn do at Westminster – just not turn up and take their seats?

Limbo

I feel like the little boy pointing out that far from the Emperor wearing fine suit he is wearing nothing at all.

But I have to ask why anyone in favour of the UK leaving the European Union wants to vote for the Brexit party in the election of Members of the European Parliament.

To vote for them cannot alter the current limbo on the Brexit negotiations in any way at all because that is the responsibility of the UK parliament, not the European Parliament.

So, all those people who claim that they want do something about Brexit are wasting their time by voting on May 23^rd.

But there again, in this age of virtual clicktivism perhaps voting for a virtual political party that won’t solve anything, like the Brexit party, is the appropriate thing to do.

We can’t run Nation.Cymru without your help! If you support the development of an independent Welsh media for the people of Wales, please donate now!