'Swept up on a tide': disaffected voters flock to Brexit party across north-west

Supporters look to Nigel Farage to unite nation and introduce ‘down-to-earth’ politics, says our Paris correspondent

As the glitterball twinkled and the raffle table heaved with prizes in a Lancashire pub in the former mill village of Bamber Bridge, Margaret West was feeling happier than she had for months. The Blackpool rock‘n’roll dancer and former education worker had been so angry and stressed over Brexit she’d lost sleep over it, felt ignored by politicians and unfairly insulted online for voting to leave. But then something came along that made her feel represented, “that gave me a sense of excitement, something new and worthy like the Suffragette movement”, she said. It was Nigel Farage’s Brexit party.

West had never been involved in politics and had voted Labour before switching to Conservative. Now she is one of more than 100,000 Brexit party supporters who donated online, put stickers in their windows and went to Farage’s roadshow rallies. At this Brexit party pub night south of Preston, supporters were looking ahead to planning a Westminster election campaign. “It’s like being swept up on a tide,” West said. “There’s such a great atmosphere. I’ve never been to the football but when Nigel walks out at a rally, I imagine that’s the feeling you get when your team scores a goal.”

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from The Guardian http://bit.ly/2VKJIft