Inside the Brexit Party launch: Tory anger, Rees-Mogg and ‘Treason May’

On Friday, in an inconspicuous metal finishing factory on an industrial estate in Coventry, Nigel Farage officially launched his new Brexit Party, and set out its strategy ahead of the European Parliament elections on 23 May.

The message of the day was clear: the people, especially Leave voters, have been let down by the Westminster establishment, and voting for the Brexit party is the best way to show that you are angry, and willing to do something about it.

Kitted out in his customary Union Flag socks, Farage hit out at the way the Brexit negotiations had been conducted so far, describing it as a ‘wilful betrayal of the greatest democratic exercise in the history of this nation’. Much of his venom was reserved for politicians in Westminster, which – he claimed – his new party would ‘put the fear of God into’. He said career politicians didn’t believe that Britain was still a great country, and were overseeing its managed decline.