I Broke It, You Bought It

Nigel Farage has decided that someone else can help clean up the mess he helped create his his flagrant lying:

While Americans celebrated the Founding Fathers’ successful fight for independence on Monday, back in the mother country, modern British leaders provided an equally inspirational lesson for the kids: If you make a huge mistake, just run away and let other people clean up the mess. Following in the footsteps of David Cameron and Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage — one of the lead campaigners for Brexit — announced that he will be stepping down as the leader of the U.K. Independence Party. “The victory for the ‘Leave’ side in the referendum means that my political ambition has been achieved,” Farage explained in a statement. “I came into this struggle from business because I wanted us to be a self-governing nation, not to become a career politician.”

Farage went on to acknowledge that the terms of Britain’s withdrawal from the EU are unclear (or as some put it, chaotic and deeply concerning), but that’s not his problem. “I now feel that I’ve done my bit, that I couldn’t possibly achieve more,” he told reporters. “It’s right that I should now stand aside as leader. What I said during the referendum campaign is I want my country back. What I’m saying today is I want my life back. And it begins right now.”

[…]

Those who only started paying attention to Brexit after the world started freaking out about its potential to tear apart the U.K. and spark another global recession may recognize Farage from this viral clip, in which he admits on the morning after the vote that leaving the E.U. does not mean £350 million per week will go toward the National Health Service — though, that was a central claim of the Leave campaign.

I’m sure Michael Gove will totally be able to negotiate that deal where the UK gets all of the benefits of EU membership while bearing none of the costs, though!