With around 1.5 million people and rising having signed a petition calling for a re-run of the referendum that decided the UK’s membership of the EU, a surprise supporter has left supporters of Leave utterly flabbergasted.
Dianne Kochs-Farage, cousin of the famous Eurosceptic and UKIP leader Nigel told the Herald this afternoon that her nicotine-fingered relative actually supports the re-run.
“Nigel has always been keen to keep the family onside,” said the Rochdale-based futures trader Dianne, “so I was a bit confused when I Skyped him this morning and he asked me to sign the petition. I always thought he was a bit anti-democratic but it seems not.”
Mr Farage told Dianne that he had always said that if the result as as close as 52-48 for Remain that he favoured a re-run and he felt that it should also apply if the result was 52-48 for Leave.
“He told me that he’d watched his own shares and stocks become worthless and admitted that that if anything the NHS would be worse off and we’d have less control of immigration than ever! And it was time for a rethink, he said. I nearly swallowed my own chin!”
Mr Farage was interviewed yesterday on ITV where he admitted that the £350 million figure was a bit of a fib and that it was unlikely that any savings would be funnelled into the NHS. He also distanced himself from the claims on the basis that he was ostracised by the main Leave campaigners as they saw him as toxic and claimed he’d never repeated the lie himself.
Asked whether Nigel might publicly support a second referendum, Dianne told us that she believed that he was thinking about it.
“You’ve got to understand,” she said, “that he’s invested years to get this result and it’s a bit embarrassing for him to publicly lose face now. But he’s keen for everybody to sign the petition and see if we can’t save ourselves from this mess before Article 50 is actioned.”
A representative for Rochdale For OUT, the local UKIP sponsored grass-roots organisation, said they felt betrayed but refused to comment further on the matter.
Mr Farage was unavailable for comment at the time of writing but sources close to him inside UKIP have yet to deny that he favours a re-run.
