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Nigel Farage lists three Brexit benefits during heated I'm A Celebrity clash with Fred Sirieix
27 November 2023, 13:27 | Updated: 27 November 2023, 15:03
Nigel Farage and Fred Sirieix have once again clashed over Brexit on I’m A Celebrity ... Get Me Out Of Here! after the First Dates star challenged the former UKIP leader to name three benefits of Brexit.
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The politician listed sovereignty, “hopefully taking back our territorial waters” and a nuclear submarine deal with Australia, worth £4bn.
After Mr Farage claimed “self-governance” was one such advantage, the French maitre d’hotel said this was something “we already had”.
Mr Farage hit back: “If you believe that, you don’t know what the European Union is.”
“The point about it is we can make a mess of it ourselves if we choose to,” he later added.
Mr Sirieix retorted: “And that is what we are doing”
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The Brexit campaigner, then went on to cite the security pact Aukus – under which the UK struck a multi-billion pound deal with Australia, selling cutting-edge Rolls-Royce reactors.
This sparked a political rift with France in 2021, who had previously been promised the submarine contract by Australia instead of the UK.
“The nuclear submarine deal done with Australia,” said Mr Farage, “could not have been done without as a European Union member because France already had a contract”
Mr Sirieix told the Brexiteer, “The French people were really p*ssed off.”
“Of course they were. Good,” replied Mr Farage.
On Sunday’s show, the pair also argued about Brexit’s impact on the NHS
Mr Sireix said: “One thing they said during the Brexit vote is ‘We’re going to get £350 million a week that we can redirect to the NHS and build new hospitals and free care and all that’. Never happened.”
Farage responded: “Spending is up, Fred, by £500m.”
This was not the first time the fellow reality show contestants have clashed since signing up to I’m A Celebrity ... Get Me Out Of Here! earlier this month.
"Brexit was about immigration,” Mr Sirieix said in a previous episode, “I remember your poster. I thought it was shameful what you did Nigel. Shameful."
Farage replied: "Sadly, sadly it was absolutely true. It was a poster showing mass young men moving illegally across borders."
Speaking directly to the camera on last weekend’s episode, Mr Farage addressed the Brexit-fueled feud.
“Fred cannot help himself occasionally,” he said. “Occasionally that bubbling resentment and anger brims up to the surface.”