Share

Leave and Remain battle 16th century style: sailing down the Thames

“Remain” campaigners in dinghies tried to disrupt the demonstration by the “Leave” flotilla of fishing vessels.

Advertisement

Farage’s vessel was greeted by boats carrying “remain” supporters, including rock star philanthropist Bob Geldof, who launched a verbal barrage telling Farage he was a “fraud”, and that he should “go back down the river because you are up one without a canoe or a paddle”.

Pro-Brexit supporter Nigel Farage was bpart of a flotilla of over 30 boats organised by Scottish skippers as part of the Fishing for Leave campaign.

He said the procession, which travelled under Tower Bridge and moved past Parliament, was “not a celebration or a party, but a full-throttled protest” against European Union membership.

“The EU has been using the quotas to get rid of the boats we have”.

“At the moment it’s not a partnership, France had quotas for 4,000 tonnes of cod at the end of the year unused when we were crying out for it but they would not let us have it”.

“What’s threatening the livelihoods of thousands of sustainable, family-run businesses is the grossly unfair division of fish quota overseen by successive United Kingdom governments”.

She said: “No it’s not, and I think his campaign has been brilliant”.

He occasionally took the mic to harangue the commander of the rival flotilla, Nigel Farage, a right-wing British politician and, for a few hours at least, captain of H.M.S. Brexit.

The environmental group Greenpeace earlier put out a statement saying that Farage had attended just one out of 42 meetings of the European Parliament Fisheries Committee when he was a member.

In a statement after the confrontation, he said: “Look at the facts: Farage is no fisherman’s friend”.

Bob Geldof spotted on one of the boats during the flotilla of boats sailing up the river Thames in a mass protest.

He invoked a war spirit as he said: “I hope my countrymen have the courage, like the men who went into the trenches, to say “we are going to be a free nation again and we are going to flourish great and free”.

The Ukip leader was leading a fleet of fishing boats from Essex to Parliament – demanding “our waters back” when the Boomtown Rat singer ambushed the publicity stunt.

Mr Osborne’s warning came as opinion polls indicate a surge of support for the Brexit camp, putting pressure on global markets.

“If you get back to the Geneva Convention definition, you will find very few people that came into Europe past year would actually qualify as genuine refugees”.

Mr Farage said: “We used to protest against the establishment and now the establishment protests against us”.

Advertisement

Update: Jeremy Corbyn has got involved. “It has absolutely nothing to do with the official Leave campaign in Scotland”.

BREXIT The Thames has been the scene of the most colourful and unusual exchanges of the referendum campaign so far. Note the larger trawlers occupying where RMS St. Helena recently moored next to HMS Belfast in the Pool of London