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Nigel Farage and Bob Geldof's rival EU referendum flotillas clash on the Thames Nigel Farage and Bob Geldof's rival EU referendum flotillas clash on the Thames
(about 5 hours later)
Nigel Farage and Bob Geldof have clashed in the middle of the Thames in rival flotillas campaigning for and against remaining in the European Union. The Brexit battle took to the waves on Tuesday as Nigel Farage and Bob Geldof commandeered rival Thames cruiser boats for a campaign stunt about EU fishing policy that quickly turned to mayhem.
The rock star charity fundraiser was on board a pleasure cruiser that pulled alongside a boat Farage had commandeered to lead a flotilla of fishermen campaigning to leave the EU when he harangued the Ukip leader over loudspeakers cranked up to maximum volume. In what at times resembled a naval battle, rival leave and remain fleets skippered in spirit by the Ukip leader and the rock star fundraiser skirmished on the fast flowing river between Tower Bridge and the Palace of Westminster. Before it was over, Farage’s flotilla of angry trawlermen campaigning for leave had drenched Geldof’s boat with hoses and angrily boarded it midstream to the dismay of the river authorities. Geldof’s boat almost shredded the eardrums of those on Farage’s vessel with a high decibel blast of 60s pop music; Geldof called Farage “a fraud” and flicked him the V sign.
After blasting the song I’m in with the In Crowd over a rig of four loudspeakers, Geldof took the mic and declared: “Nigel, you are a fraud.” The leave campaigners on the boat with Farage, including the millionaire pro-Brexit funder Arron Banks, tried to shout back “Shame on you”, but were drowned out. Ukip chartered Edwardian, a luxurious river cruiser, to support a dozen fishing boats from Brixham, Berwick, Ramsgate and Faversham, all calling for Brexit under the banner Fishing for Leave.
Geldof attacked Farage as “no fisherman’s friend” as Farage stood at the prow of his boat facing the other way talking to Kate Hoey, the Labour leave campaigner. Geldof’s sonic assault successfully drowned out Farage’s broadcast interviews. The stunt became a battle when Geldof on a large white pleasure boat, Sarpedon, chartered for a counter-demonstration, pulled alongside Farage’s vessel as the Ukip leader was telling TV cameras how the fishing industry was “literally being destroyed as a result of EU membership”.
Geldof said: “Here are the facts about fishing. Britain makes more money than any other country in Europe from fishing. Two, Britain has the second largest quota for fishing in Europe after Denmark. Three, Britain has the third largest landings. Fourth, you are no fisherman’s friend.” Farage was stopped mid-flow as Geldof’s ship blasted out at earsplitting volume Dobie Gray’s 1964 hit The In Crowd. On board with Geldof was Rachel Johnson, sister of the Brexit campaign leader, Boris Johnson. Geldof then harangued Farage, shouting through the PA system: “Nigel, you are a fraud.”
As Farage’s flotilla of 12 fishing boats proceeded upstream to Westminster, he attacked Geldof’s intervention afterwards as “ignorant” and “insulting”. Leave campaigners tried to shout back “shame on you”, but were drowned out by the sonic assault. Farage stood at the prow of his boat with his back turned, alongside Kate Hoey, the Labour leave campaigner.
“He doesn’t know anything about the common fisheries policy,” the Ukip leader told the Guardian. “You can’t reform it from within. You can’t change it. There is nothing you can do apart from leave.” Leave campaign fishing vessels and rival remain inflatables weaved in and out of the mother ships in sometimes reckless manoeuvres, but it was a culture war as much as a naval one. Ukip MEP David Coburn declared Geldof’s passengers looked like “the nightclub crowd at Annabel’s”, although they in fact included several Corbynista Momentum activists. Farage’s crew were mostly suited Ukip backers including the insurance millionaire Arron Banks and party aides snacking on prawn sandwiches and sipping white wine while the music to The Great Escape played in the background.
Asked about the barrage of noise, he said: “It’s just insulting to these people. Some of these lads have come from the north of Scotland, communities that have never been listened to, where we have seen tens of thousands of jobs lost and a way of life destroyed, and they come here to make their protest and be heard, and they get a multimillionaire laughing at them. Horrible, disgusting.” Geldof yelled: “Here are the facts about fishing. Britain makes more money than any other country in Europe from fishing. Two, Britain has the second largest quota for fishing in Europe after Denmark. Three, Britain has the third largest landings.”
The battle between the rival fleets later intensified when fishermen claimed they boarded Geldof’s boat “to tell him the truth”. Another vessel in the pro-Brexit fishing fleet also directed its hoses at Geldof’s boat. Farage strode across the deck of Edwardian and declared Geldof “horrible, disgusting”.
The pro-Brexit fishing fleet of 12 vessels carried fishermen from Peterhead, Berwick, Brixham, Ramsgate and Faversham. A rusty fishing trawler called Wayward Lad with nets hanging off the back pulled up alongside Geldof’s boat, the Sarpedon, and apparently collected a fisherman who had been on board. “It’s just insulting to these people,” he said. “Some of these lads have come from the north of Scotland, communities that have never been listened to, where we have seen tens of thousands of jobs lost and a way of life destroyed, and they come here to make their protest and be heard, and they get a multimillionaire laughing at them.”
The nautical skirmishes came outside the Palace of Westminster and saw police boats attempt to intervene. Parliamentarians looked on from the terraces of the Commons and the Lords, and three helicopters, including a police helicopter, hovered above. Geldof angered the fishermen, too, who yelled from their boats that they could not make a living under EU quotas and were being forced to discard tonnes of catch.
Geldof said to Farage over his boat’s sound system: “We wish these hardworking families all the best but you ain’t the man for the job, dude. Go downriver.” Steve Easton, who fishes off the south coast, shouted angrily about “French and Belgians going up and down six miles off Brighton and we can’t”.
One fishing boat came alongside Geldof’s boat and drenched it with a hose. According to Bethany Pickering, a remain activist on board, Geldof told the fisherman to “fuck off”. Richard Eves, a fisherman from Leigh-on-Sea, decided to launch a boarding raid on Geldof’s boat using his rusty trawler Wayward Lad.
“We threatened to ram them first and then they let us on,” he said afterwards. “They shit themselves. I was angry.”
Eves climbed aboard in midstream with fellow fisherman Paul Marchant and confronted Geldof. “I just felt that some of the things he was coming out with weren’t facts,” said Marchant. “He was just shaking his head. He said, ‘We’re not against you mate.’ But I said you can dress figures up to say anything you want. That’s why I wanted to go on there and explain to him my point of view.”
Most of this happened in the waters close to Westminster Bridge, from where peers and MPs looked on from parliament’s terraces as TV helicopters hovered overhead. Given the intensity of the battle, it was perhaps no surprise both sides had deserters. At the halfway point, Hoey asked to get off but was told she could not. On Geldof’s boat, half a dozen leftwing remain activists disembarked because, according to Pickering who was among them, “these fishermen were working-class people with genuine issues and we didn’t think they should be erased by Bob Geldof”.