Thread by @lewis_goodall

I mention Theresa May’s name to @brexitparty_uk rally crowd:

“REMAINER COWARD!” Came the reply.

“Liar! Liar! She is just a disgusting liar“ says another.

Why are you here today, I ask a man in the crowd.

“Because we’re patriots.”

Are members of other parties, not patriots I reply.

“No, they’re not.” Cue cheers from the crowd.

Ann Widdecombe gets standing ovation from this northern crowd. British politics transformed. Figures from the right, economically rightwing, Thatcherite like she and Farage, are now lauded as the true voice of the working class. The cultural turn in a nutshell.

Widdecombe: “If we have a customs union- will we have left?”

“NO!” Screams the crowd

“If we have May’s deal, will we have left?”

“NO!” Screams the crowd.

The idea that if May and Corbyn put a deal together this stops and Westminster can “move on” is completely delusional.

.@Fox_Claire: “We are real people with real and complicated histories and they’re going to throw a lot of bile at us. Just like they did when they threw bile at you the electorate after you voted the way you did.”

.@Fox_Claire: “When the political establishment look at at you who have turned out today, they’re not humbled...”

“They’re terrified!” Shouts a man in the crowd.

“The truth is, they think they’re better than us”, Fox goes on.

.@Nigel_Farage takes to the stage.

Farage asks if the crowd feels sorry for Theresa May after last night’s drubbing.

“Lock her up!” a few in the crowd shouts back.

The anger here is extraordinary, I’ve never seen anything like it. Energy yes but bittnerness too. Farage mentions the name of a North West Labour candidate for the Euros now backing another referendum. A woman next to me, with real vitriol, mutters “bastard” under her breath.

Farage: “We have a two party system which is no longer fit for purpose. Our system is rotten to the core- a civil service, many of whom are active remain campaigners. We need a peaceful political revolution. We need to win back our birthright.”

If you talk to people here there is no doubt, Farage is a hero.

I ask one couple, one who used to vote Labour, one Tory now if the anger would dissipate if May and Corbyn agree on a deal: “You’ve got to be joking. It’ll only be the start.”

One man goes further: “both of them should be prosecuted, especially May.”

“Shoot them!” one man says.

Not everyone is angry. One couple approach me. The man says “I’ve seen you on the news so I just hope you’ll tell people this. For me the only thing I care about is democracy. It hurts me what is happening. I just can’t believe they’re not giving to us.”

His voice quivers as he says it’s You can hear the pain, it’s visceral.

“There will be a peaceful revolution” says one lady, “they will regret the day they went back on their word.”

You really get the feeling that even if a deal is passed, this is the beginning of something, not the end.

That of course won’t be a problem for May to deal with, she’ll be gone. Jeremy Corbyn on the other hand...

Repeatedly the people here (mainly though not exclusively ex Tory voters)brought up Theresa May’s words to me: “she said we’d leave on 29th March again and again, that was the moment I was through with her” said one, but it was a v common refrain.

Many more repeated May’s words taht no deal was better than a bad deal. And Brexit means Brexit. So many of the problems she’s now finding, so much of the resistance she’s encountering, so much of the bitterness in politics she unwittingly helped foster and create.

Many there had never been to a political event before. A man stopped me in his car on the way out: “I know some people were shouting. But for me it’s just about democracy. It’s all we want, isn’t it?” His daughters and his wife nodded. More than anything else, they seemed sad.

Farage told me that nothing would get people angrier than May and Corbyn cooking up a deal together. That the appearance of that, the political class closing ranks would create anger, not diffuse it. I think he’s right.

Either way, what @brexitparty_uk has achieved in five weeks is, whatever your politics, remarkable and I think something potentially quite new for British politics. It has twists of Trumpism but in a very British context.

As Farage told me, the US “is always a few years ahead of us” and I think he thinks he can bring that to the UK. If anyone can it’s him. I suspect Westminster hasn’t anything yet and it seriously needs to think about how it prepared and might respond.

And now after election night, Election Day and Blackpool Brexit rally, I am going for 🍷🍷🍷