Nigel Farage has claimed many MPs favour the UK rejoining the European Union, as he claimed Brexiteers are outnumbered in the new Parliament.
The Reform UK leader said Westminster is “very different” from the European Parliament, where he spent nearly 21 years as an MEP, as he made his maiden speech in the House of Commons.
He also called for a referendum on the UK’s continued membership of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) as his speech turned to the issue of small boat crossings.
The new MP for Clacton in Essex said of Westminster: “It’s smaller, there is not a chauffeur-driven Mercedes available for each member, no large lump sums of money which you don’t have to spend on anything and show no receipts for, and I wonder whether perhaps that’s why so many in the British political system seem to adore the European Union so much, because it is a rather wonderful place to work.
“What I perhaps didn’t expect was to come here and to find I’m more outnumbered with my Reform team, more outnumbered here than we were in the European Parliament.
“Because there are more supporters of Brexit in the European Parliament than I sense there are in this Parliament of 2024.
“This is very much a Remainers’ Parliament – I suspect in many cases it’s really a rejoiners’ Parliament.”
Mr Farage earlier said he hopes to attract investment to Clacton after noting during the election that he had spoken to people who said they want to work but are “better off staying on benefits” under the current system.
He said: “I have to say I feel immensely sorry for people who… the benefits system, which is designed to help them, is actually keeping them trapped in levels of relative poverty.
“So I will do my best, as the MP for the area, to bring business, investment, private money into the constituency with jobs and training and skills. I can’t promise that I’ll do it but I’ll do my absolute damnedest to make it happen.”
Turning to immigration, Mr Farage said: “I believe that the population explosion is having the biggest impact on the quality of life of ordinary folk than any other issue.”
He added: “We will not stop the boats, even if we send a handful to Rwanda, we will not stop the boats by attempting to smash the criminal gangs.
“We’ve been doing that to the drugs industry in Britain year after year, decade after decade with no success whatsoever.
“The financial rewards for smuggling people across the English Channel can now net a gang two to three million euros a week.
“Whatever prison sentences or penalties are put upon them, there will always be people volunteering to make millions of euros a week.
“We will only stop this if we start deporting people that come illegally, then they won’t pay the smugglers. But we’ll only do that by leaving the ECHR.
“But I’ve got a fun suggestion that I think would liven up politics, engage the public and see a massively increased turnout: why don’t we have a referendum on whether we continue to be members of the ECHR?”
Richard Tice also made his maiden speech and claimed eastern European people in Boston, Lincolnshire, had created “an intimidating atmosphere in the centre of the town”.
The Reform UK deputy leader said: “They’ve got nothing to do and they’ve been aided and abetted to come to the UK with false promises by, I believe, morally bankrupt businesses that are helping them to get national insurance numbers for overseas persons under a scheme that we thought had closed – we thought the EU Settlement status scheme had closed, but it turns out it’s not, if you fib about how much time you’ve spent here before 2020 then you can still apply.”
When he claimed some immigrants signed on for benefits “and then send the money home”, MPs on Government benches began to speak with each other.
Mr Tice said: “The muttering, you see, the truth hurts, the establishment don’t want to talk about this, do they?”
He also said “bureaucracy and inertia” had harmed UK fishing and put tens of thousands of homes at risk of flooding because North Sea coastal defences had not been properly maintained, adding: “Another reason that my constituents are actually really quite grumpy is because of the implications of the stupid net-zero policies which will result in hundreds of massive ugly pylons blighting the environment and countryside in my constituency as well as solar farms planned on incredibly productive agricultural farmland – absolute idiocy.”
The party deputy leader earlier said Skegness was home to “the best value, the most delicious and the greatest portion of ice cream, which I’m very partial to”.
Calling for increased investment and more infrastructure – and in a nod to former US president Donald Trump’s election campaign slogan – Mr Tice said: “With these things then actually, my constituency of Boston and Skegness can once again be great again.”
