U.K. Independence Party leader and racist fear-monger Nigel Farage on Friday said it was a “mistake” for the Vote Leave campaign to promise that—in a nation free of the yoke of European tyranny—some £350 million in weekly payments to the mainland could instead go to fund Britain’s National Health Service (NHS).
“I would never have made that claim,” Farage said, in an interview on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, clarifying that he has no formal association with Vote Leave. (Farage is closer with the more explicitly jingoist Leave.EU.) “It certainly wasn’t one of my adverts.”
That much is true. Farage preferred ominous posters of the immigrant masses supposedly invading the British Isles. But it’s also true that Farage—who is on record as saying a narrow margin of victory for the “remain” option would be grounds for a recall—did nothing to prevent his followers from drawing erroneous conclusions, which many apparently did.