‘Britain is heading for a national crisis’: Nigel Farage warns number of Channel migrants will rise, NHS ‘can’t cope’ and government borrowing will lead to £100bn deficit next year as he eyes return to frontline politics

• Nigel Farage predicts Channel crossings will reach crisis point by summer 2022
• Leave and Tory voters may boycott Boris over migration issue, Farage says
• Farage blasts ‘Remainer blob’ in civil service for stifling Brexit Britain’s potential
• Meanwhile, as inflation and NHS pressures bite, Farage sees dark times ahead  
• The GB News presenter is ‘thinking about’ a comeback to frontline politics

Britain is staring down the barrel of a three-pronged crisis on immigration, NHS waiting times and rising inflation, according to Nigel Farage, who is reportedly considering a comeback to front-line politics.

Nigel Farage, who has become a presenter on GB News since stepping down from his post as head of the Brexit Party, said he receives daily pleas to return to the political battlefield, according to today’s Sunday Express. 

Meanwhile, with an eye towards the next general election, the GB News presenter predicted Boris Johnson’s party could suffer at the polls if the Channel crossing issue spirals out of control. 

Mr Farage’s rebuke against the Tories comes as the migrant Channel crossing tragedy sparks infighting in Mr Johnson’s cabinet:

• Priti Patel has defended her handling of migrant crisis to ministers and MPs
• 27 migrants, including women and children, died when dinghy sank off Calais
• Prime Minister said to have privately rebuked her for ‘failing to get a grip’ of issue
• Home Office sources however defended her saying she had been ‘battling against’ French inaction
• But No10 officials now say she has ‘doing nothing for two years’ and has been ‘missing in action’ following latest tragedy 

Nigel Farage has laid out a gloomy prognosis, warning Britain is in choppy seas – with the Channel crossing issue, pressure on the health service and rising inflation all high up on his list of concerns

Mr Farage has been covering the migrant Channel crossing issue since April 2020, when he first uploaded a video to his YouTube channel from Pett Level Beach in East Sussex, in what he described as a ‘fact-finding mission’ 

The Home Secretary has been privately rebuked by Boris Johnson for failing to ‘get a grip’ on the issue, and was joined in his criticisms by other Ministers at a meeting in the wake of the drowning tragedy

Mr Farage has been covering Channel crossings by illegal migrants since April 2020, when he made a YouTube video from a drizzly Pett Level Beach in East Sussex, describing the trip to the camera as a ‘fact-finding mission’. 

At the time, the former Brexit Party boss received ridicule for his reporting on the issue – and East Sussex Police were ‘bombarded by complaints’ that he had allegedly broken lockdown travel rules, according to Mr Farage.

Tensions rise between Britain and France over migrant Channel crossing tragedy

Boris Johnson has told Emmanuel Macron that British boots are needed on the ground in France to stop evil slave gangs ‘getting away with murder’ after at least 27 migrants drowned in the deadliest-ever Channel crossing.

Four alleged people smugglers thought to be connected with the disaster were arrested by police north of Dunkirk, near the France-Belgian border, on Wednesday evening after tragedy struck shortly around 2pm.

Five women and a girl were believed to be among the casualties, with the disaster coming just hours of French police sat and watched boats leave their shore.

Meanwhile, the EU’s former Brexit negotiator has dramatically urged France to tear up its migrant treaty with Britain and send asylum-seekers across the Channel as tensions between London and Paris boil over.

Michel Barnier, the former French Europe minister who dreams of unseating Emmanuel Macron at next year’s presidential elections, vowed that he would pull France out of the Treaty of Touquet governing Anglo-French border relations if he wins the ballot.

Under the terms of the agreement struck in 2003, each country has immigration control points at Dover and Calais. Britain is responsible for financing and running security at its border sites in northern France. In return, it is up to France to stop migrants trying to enter the UK illegally.

 Paris has complained that, in practice, they are managing the British border with mainland Europe. They have also claimed that the treaty has resulted in huge numbers of migrants setting up campsites – such as the infamous Jungle dismantled in 2016 – at its ports as they attempt to enter Britain.

London has accused the French of failing to stop migrants illegally crossing the Narrow Sea, despite paying Paris £54million in instalments to increase patrols in a bid to curb Channel voyages. France has previously raised the prospect of ending checks on migrants unless Britain backs down in the ongoing post-Brexit dispute over fishing licences.

This week, following the deaths of 27 people who drowned while crossing the Channel on a flimsy blow-up boat, Mr Farage says he is predicting a ‘national emergency’.

Mr Farage said: ‘I think it is possible that by the spring or summer of next year this [the Channel crossings by migrants] will become a national emergency.

‘I think the numbers that will come will dwarf what you are currently seeing.

‘I’ve not been wrong on a single prediction on this.’ 

In the wide-ranging interview with Sunday Express, Mr Farage laid out his grim prognosis for the nation, with the health service and inflation high up the GB News presenter’s list of concerns.

‘Already, we are being told if you want a hip operation to, drive 400 miles. An NHS that simply can’t cope. Nobody dares own up to it.’

Mr Farage continued: ‘Inflation is a disease of money caused by government. This government is borrowing and borrowing. Even a Conservative budget foresees a deficit of £100billion next year. 

‘Addiction to quantitative easing. Asset pumping. The rich getting disproportionately richer. Nobody in Westminster seems to get it.’

As tensions between Britain and France boil over, with both sides grappling with the fallout from the biggest single-day loss of life in the Channel, Farage predicts things will only get worse. 

‘I have been on this for 20 months. [When] I did my first YouTube film, I went to visit the south coast to start to raise awareness of it. I’ve been on it almost every day since.’

He said: ‘You can put 20,000 police on the beach in France, but if the pull factors remain as strong here, namely four-star accommodation, three square meals a day, healthcare, dental care, spending money and the massive illegal economy that thrives in Britain with slave conditions – although nobody dares want to talk about that whether it is in Leicester or wherever it is.’ 

In a swipe at Boris Johnson and the Tory Party, Mr Farage accused the prime minister of only having paid lip service to the issue in the 2019 general election to win votes. 

Mr Farage dismissed the concern the prime minister had professed for the issue in late 2019 as ‘utterly insincere’.  

‘The majority of Leave voters, the vast majority of Conservative voters, see [immigration] as an absolutely defining issue and he hasn’t got a clue how to do this.

‘I think there are millions of people now who literally would not vote. The Corbyn bogeyman has gone. It is difficult to see how Starmer could be worse.’  

 The Home Secretary has been privately rebuked by Boris Johnson for failing to ‘get a grip’ on the issue, and was joined in his criticisms by other Ministers at a meeting in the wake of the drowning tragedy.

The 49-year-old’s friends however hit back, accusing other ministers of doing ‘sweet f*** all’ to help with the situation and accusing the French of refusing to cooperate.

But concerns have continued to build up over Ms Patel’s ability to deal with the crossings, which now stand at nearly three times last year’s total.

One official from No10 attacked Ms Patel for ‘doing nothing for two years’, while a cabinet colleague said that she ‘has got to get a grip’.

They told the Sunday Times: ‘She has overpromised and underdelivered for the past two years. It’s been all mouth and no trousers and everyone, including the PM, is getting fed up of her.’

Priti Patel, 49, last night launched a defence of her handling of the migrant crisis as she faced pressure from Ministers and MPs

Another cabinet minister accused her of ‘missing in action’ for interviews to respond to news of the 27 people who drowned on Wednesday.

While the Prime Minister has remained publicly supportive of Ms Patel there were claims last night that he had lost confidence in his Home Secretary. No10 denied the rumours.     

In today’s interview with Sunday Express, Mr Farage said he sees a role for himself in changing the country’s direction of travel, and that he has not ruled out a return to frontline politics.

‘Never say never. I am going to think about it. I get emails every day from people who want me to come back.

Mr Farage claims he gets emails urging him to stage a comeback to frontline politics on a daily basis, although for the meantime he feels his role as a presenter at GB News is enabling him to make an impact on politics

‘I had one from a couple saying if you wish to do this again Mr Farage we will send you £1,000 of our hard-earned money. Just an ordinary couple I have never met in my life

‘I have also had some big donors who are more Conservative backers than Ukip backers by history, saying this is not a government that believes in the free market, not a government that stands up for the small guy. Will you consider a return?

‘There is general disappointment. We have a Conservative government that is unconservative in every way – that is big state, is raising taxes, that laughably keeps saying it believes in lower taxes. You can’t say one thing and do the other.’ 

For now, Mr Farage says he is content in his role as a presenter for GB News.

‘The channel is growing, no question about that. I feel like I can influence things that way,’ said Mr Farage. 

Source: Read Full Article