UKIP leader Nigel Farage will address a 600-plus Chester audience tomorrow evening (Friday, November 6) as part of his nationwide ‘Say No to EU’ tour .
The charismatic Mr Farage is the main speaker at the event taking place at the Crowne Plaza Hotel.
He is campaigning to leave the European Union ahead of a referendum on whether the UK should stay in or exit the EU, which is planned to take place before the end of 2017 at the latest.
Mr Farage, who is co-president of the Eurosceptic Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy (EFDD) group in the European Parliament, will be joined by UKIP deputy leader Paul Nuttall MEP, who will chair the event, plus fellow North West UKIP Euro MP Louise Bours, who will also speak. Chester resident and UKIP MEP Stephen Woolfe will also be present but won't be among the speakers.
Ms Bours told The Chronicle: “UKIP is often misrepresented as wanting to abandon Europe which is a load of bobbins. My dad is Dutch for heaven’s sake. We want to leave the European Union. We believe it’s possible to trade with Europe without having a political union and this huge political project.”
The MEP, a former actor who appeared in TV series such as Band of Gold, Peak Practice and Brookside, believes the EU has ‘gone too far’ in terms of being capable of reform because the structure is ‘unwieldy’ and won’t change because it ‘works for the big corporations and big business’.
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She hopes the Chester audience will include not only Eurosceptic UKIP supporters but also ‘undecideds’ and even EU backers.
“Perhaps we can plant some seeds of doubt in their heads! There’s no point preaching to the converted,” said Ms Bours, a mother-of-two, who expects some audience members may attend purely because of Mr Farage’s celebrity status.
Speaking about her leader, she said: “He’s a very passionate individual. His whole political career has been building up to this referendum, it’s something he’s fought and worked for. For him it’s been a personal mission almost.”
Of his popularity, she said: “If you speak to him in a pub with a pint of beer, you will find him no different to when he’s talking to 700 people tomorrow night and I think that’s probably what people like about him, that what you see is what you get.”
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Mr Farage told his party conference in Doncaster in September: “There is something dearer to my heart than party politics, even if it is UKIP. I want us to summon every resource of energy that we can find in our bodies and our minds. I want us to dedicate ourselves wholly to winning that referendum and breaking the link with political union with Europe and that’s the message we must send out to other activists and councillors and MPs and MEPs in the other political parties.
“This is the moment to put country before party. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to get back the independence and self-government of this nation. Our message is clear; we want our country back.”
