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Farage accuses May of stealing his policies

Member of the European Parliament and former leader of the anti-EU UK Independence Party (UKIP) Nigel Farage gestures as he speaks at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, eastern France, April 5, 2017. (Photo by AFP)

Former UK Independence Party (UKIP) leader Nigel Farage has accused Prime Minister Theresa May of stealing his policies and implanting them into her campaign for the upcoming general elections.

Farage told ITV on Sunday that May has been copying the style he adopted in 2013, which helped him win the local council elections “on a manifesto of bringing back grammar schools, getting Britain outside the European Union, controlling immigration.”

“Four years on, the British prime minister was running on exactly the same ticket and swept the board,” he said.

“She is using exactly the same words and phrases that I have been using for 20 years. I thought bashing Brussels bureaucrats was purely my domain,” Farage said, referring to May’s recent attacks against the European Union (EU).

Last Wednesday, May said the “bureaucrats of Brussels” were using Brexit as an excuse to influence the outcome of the June 8 snap vote.

She also attacked the European media, saying they had “misrepresented” her government’s stance on negotiations concerning the UK’s withdrawal from the EU.

Farage, a main Brexit leader, has been an outspoken critic of Brussels ever since last July, when 52 percent of Britons voted to end their country’s decades-long membership in the EU.

British Prime Minister Theresa May (Photo by AFP)

In early April, Farage drew an analogy between the EU and the mafia, saying the bloc was keeping the UK hostage.

“You’re behaving like the mafia, you think we’re a hostage, we’re not! We are free to go!” he said during a rant at the European Parliament. Faced with criticism from others, he sarcastically changed mafia with “gangsters.”

In his interview with ITV, Farage said he would remain a member of the European Parliament. 

“I shall continue bashing Brussels bureaucrats, but obviously now - with Mrs. May - I have got some real competition,” he added.

May has been busy campaigning for a snap general election she called for late last month.

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While she insists that the vote is necessary for her to have a stronger hand in the negotiations, analysts say May’s decision was an opportunistic move to suppress opposition from Labour and win a more dominant majority in the parliament.

May needs to mainly defeat Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, whose party has been steadily eating into the ruling Tories’ comfortable lead in polls over the past weeks.


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