Allow Exco Player content
This content is provided by Exco Player and may use cookies or similar technologies. Please click 'Allow and Continue' below to load the content.
Nigel Farage has called for an immediate general election saying incoming Prime Minister Andy Burnham has “absolutely no mandate of any kind at all”.
The Reform UK leader gave his first major speech since resigning as an MP as he spoke at the O2 in London at the first UK edition of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) - the American institution that ex-PM Liz Truss has brought across the Atlantic.
He used the speech to launch a scathing attack on Mr Burnham describing the incoming PM as "the great chameleon of British politicians".
He said the speech given by the Makerfield MP as he was officially made the new Labour leader “utterly vacuous”.
Mr Farage said: “The only good and decent and right thing to do given where we are, with a new Prime Minister coming in, that none of you have had the opportunity to vote for or against, is that there must be an immediate general election so that the country can decide the future.”
Throughout his speech, Mr Farage reiterated that Mr Burnham had come in “with absolutely no mandate of any kind at all” in what “is supposed to be one of the world’s best and oldest and most functioning democracies.”
He claimed that “nothing will get better under Andy Burnham”.
Nigel Farage called for a general electionPAMr Farage, who is fighting a by-election in Clacton after resigning as an MP in protest at parliamentary and media scrutiny of his finances, said: “The only certainty with Burnham is we’re going to get more of the same, but they’ll go further to the left than they already are.”
He said: “He says he wants to have the biggest change of direction in politics in 40 years, outside of 25,000 voters in Makerfield he has literally no mandate for this at all”.
The Reform UK leader hit out at the incoming Prime Minister, suggesting that “on immigration, he’s never shown the slightest concern about what’s going on” and that there “was not a hope in hell” that Andy Burnham would take Britain out the ECHR.
Allow Exco Player content
This content is provided by Exco Player and may use cookies or similar technologies. Please click 'Allow and Continue' below to load the content.
He added: “I watched his acceptance speech earlier on today. I have to say I find the whole thing uttely vacuous. He is the great chameleon of British politics, capable of being all things to all people.”
Read More
Mr Farage said: “Taxes are going to rise and there’s talk, of course, of property taxes, which will collapse the housing market, especially in London and the South East, but it’ll do great damage elsewhere in the country.
“Top rate tax, I’ve no doubt, will go up and all of these things are happening for a man that has no mandate whatsoever.
Mr Farage added that whoever Mr Burnham selected as Chancellor of the Exchequer, none of them would “have ever worked in private business.”
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage speaks during the inaugural Conservative Political Action Conference Great Britain (CPAC GB) in south-east London AFP/Getty“Is it any wonder that our economy is in the depths of trouble that it is?”, he said.
Mr Farage added that personally he didn’t “need to be in politics” and that he was doing this out of “fear” that Britain was “going down the drain”.
Mr Farage claimed that if Reform failed to win the next election, the UK would “go bust” and “I honestly believe we’re less than a decade away from effectively turning into a third world country, and I will be damned if I’m going to see that”.
Mr Burnham had declared “I have a plan” to give people “hope back” and set a political direction that is “distinctively Labour” as he officially became the party’s new leader on Friday.
He said he was “ready to lead” as he took the governing party’s reins at a special conference.
Andy Burnham is now the Labour leader (Yui Mok/PA)PA WireIn his acceptance speech, Mr Burnham vowed to “build a new politics” with less division and factionalism, saying the party needed to unite if it was to thwart “Britain’s new right”.
Warning Labour had a “last chance to change”, he pledged to be “authentically us” instead of “wearing too many Tory clothes”.
The former Greater Manchester mayor returned to Westminster as Makerfield MP last month and gained overwhelming support from Labour MPs to take over from Sir Keir as party leader after he announced his resignation.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, as chairwoman of Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee, confirmed the results of the leadership contest in which Mr Burnham was backed by 379 of the party’s 403 MPs and all 11 unions affiliated with the party.