Nigel Farage expressed surprise that this was a “Remainer” parliament in his maiden Commons speech today.
The Reform UK leader, who was elected to the Commons for the first time earlier this month after seven failed attempts, revived some old EU tensions.
The famous Eurosceptic said: “I spent nearly 21 years as a member of the European Parliament in Brussels.
“I have to say, this place is very different indeed.
“It’s smaller, there is no chauffeur driven Mercedes available for each member, no large lump sums of money which you don’t have to spend on anything or show receipts for, and I wonder, perhaps that is why so many in the British political system love the European Union so much – it is a rather wonderful place to work.”
But, he added: “What I perhaps didn’t expect was to come here and find I am more outnumbered here with my Reform team than we were in the European Parliament.
“There are more supporters of Brexit in the European Parliament than I sense there are in this parliament of 2024.
“This is very much a Remainers’ parliament, I suspect in many cases, it’s really a Rejoiners’ parliament.”
There are five Reform MPs in this parliament, having had just one before the election – Tory defector, Lee Anderson, moved to Farage’s party earlier this year.
Reform was previously known as the Brexit Party, and used to advocate for no-deal with the EU – the harshest version of Brexit possible.
The Brexit Party also won the most seats at the 2019 European Parliament election in the UK, but won no seats at the general election that year.
And now, eight years after the referendum and four years since the UK officially left the trade bloc of the EU, it seems more people would like to return to the European fold.
A Techne survey for Independent Media from June showed 43% of voters are in favour of rejoining the bloc, compared with 40% who want to stay out.
Meanwhile, Farage has come under criticism for going to the US days after he was elected to support his friend Donald Trump.
Farage said “it was the right thing that I came” after Trump faced a failed assassination attempt.
