Brexiteer Farage says UK will be too closely aligned to EU

Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage said on Thursday that he suspected the United Kingdom would remain far too closely aligned to the European Union’s rules after Prime Minister Boris Johnson clinches a trade deal.

“Winning a war is one thing, winning peace is another: I suspect we are going to find ourselves far too closely aligned to EU rules in the years to come,” Farage told Talk Radio.

He said he hoped “this is the beginning of the end of the European Union,” according to a Talk Radio transcript.

“Hey, is [the deal] better than where we were five years ago? Yes, it is. Is it good enough to allow us to become Singapore, the really dynamic booming economy? No,” Farage said.

Britain and the European Union were on the cusp of striking a narrow trade deal on Thursday, swerving away from a chaotic finale to a Brexit split that has shaken the 70-year project to forge European unity from the ruins of World War Two.

While a last-minute deal would avoid the most acrimonious ending to the Brexit divorce, the United Kingdom is heading for a much more distant relationship with its biggest trade partner than almost anyone expected at the time of the 2016 Brexit vote.

Sources in London and Brussels said a deal was close as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson held a late-night conference call with his senior ministers, and negotiators in Brussels pored over reams of legal texts.

There was no official confirmation of a deal but Johnson was expected to hold a news conference – just seven days before the UK turns its back on the EU’s single market and customs union at 2300 GMT on Dec. 31.

Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said a late snag related to fishing had delayed the agreement, but that an announcement was expected later on Thursday.

Main Photo: Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage EPA-EFE/ERIK S. LESSER