16/09/2016 UKIP Conference

Thank you very much for that warm welcome and good morning conference!

We did it, didn't we? We did it! We achieved what we set out to do. We

have succeeded in getting ourselves out of this sclerotic out of date

European union. And aren't we getting off this juggernaut just at

the right time? Only 48 hours ago in the European Parliament we heard the

president of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker employee --

inform us of a European army, when Nigel Farage warned us of this back

in 2014, Nick Clegg called him a dangerous fantasist. Some good it

did him. As I was travelling back from Strasbourg the other day, I

came across Nick Clegg on television, promoting his new

autobiography. Yes, he has crawled out from under that stone. They

replayed some of his Brexit warnings. He literally stopped short

of warning of a plague of locusts and the murder of every first child

born! It was project here -- project here on turbo. It was clear there

was only one person living on fantasy Island and it isn't Nigel,

and it isn't us. Because we know as a country we will go now from

strength to strength, free from the shackles of our Brussels masters!

APPLAUSE But we are celebrating in our own

little way. I'm doing it with my Brexit beard which meant no one

recognised me last night. At least it lasted longer than Nigel's 1970s

moustache! On a serious note, we have achieved so much in so much

little time. Undoubtedly our greatest achievement has been this

referendum. It would not have happened if it hadn't have been for

Ukip. APPLAUSE In 2013 we pushed the Prime Minister

into offering a referendum that he never wanted to give. And why?

Because Ukip was steadily rising in the polls and scoring local election

wins all over the country. Mr Cameron thought that he could shoot

the LI Ukip Fox by offering this referendum but all he did was simply

feed it. The membership began to rise rapidly, we began to speak to

the huge audiences across the country. Nigel set off in his purple

taxi, the length and breadth of Britain. He spoke to thousands of

people. I did 200 public meetings, in two years Ukip began to catch on.

We exploded into local government, and we now have 500 hard-working

councillors right across the country! APPLAUSE

We forced the referendum and you helped to win it. Brexit is yours.

We and you were the fit soldiers, you delivered the leaflets and you

got our country back! APPLAUSE You will be thanked by the next

generation for giving them the power to shape their own destinies. Do not

underestimate what you have achieved, Brexit will shape the

direction that this country will take in the first half of this

century. And what direction do we want it to take? Will we want to see

a Britain that can stand proud in the world, free and independent. A

Britain that makes its own laws and has the ability to protect its own

borders. APPLAUSE This means there can be no

backsliding on Brexit. Any attempt to maintain freedom of movement of

people will not be acceptable. I want to see us have access to the

single market but not be part of it. I want a Britain that is friends

with our European neighbours, but not Boston dictated to. We want all

of our laws to be made at Westminster by people we elect!

APPLAUSE I also want to see a Britain that

looks to the emerging markets of the far east and Asia and reignites its

links with the Commonwealth which we so shamelessly turned our back on in

the 1970s! This can now all be achieved, and it's thanks to you.

Give yourselves a round of applause! APPLAUSE

I stood on this very platform eight years ago, and I said that I believe

that Ukip's future lay as a party of the patriotic working class. Very

few people believed me at the time. But it is clear that this is Ukip's

great opportunity, where in many of these working class communities

where the Labour Party has dominated for years, they are weak and dying.

The Labour Party has lost touch with its working-class roots. It is a

Labour Party that has increasingly dominated by the views of the

Islington dinner party, and the Labour Party that actually sneers at

what own flag. -- at our own flag. Ukip can make great strides in these

areas, as a party that wants to see firm but firm border control. That

wants to see prison sentences mean what they say. That wants to see all

children of all classes get a fair start in life, and one that is

prepared to put British people at the top of the pile.

Now, let me talk about the future of the party and the new leader.

Whoever he or she may be. I will be frank at this point. Because I can

be, now. Ukip has not been a happy camp for over a year. And the

animosity has spilled over into the media. Nobody, nobody, has emerged

from this with their heads held high. The designation process

between Leave.eu and Vote Leave created a cancer at the heart of the

party, and led to its leading lights using Ukip as a football. So much so

that at this present moment, the party resembles a jigsaw that has

been emptied onto the floor. The new leader must put it back together.