Brexit leader Nigel Farage is "fearful" of the way Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson is threatening to maintain a lockdown in that country amid the COVID pandemic.
"I am fearful that if we can lockdown because of COVID, we can lockdown because of flu, we can lockdown because of climate [because] pollution levels in London are too high," Farage told Newsmax's "Cortes & Pellegrino" on Tuesday. "It really is distressing to see a prime minister, elected in the name of being a conservative, acting like a big state socialist. It is awful."
He said Johnson's reaction to keep the country locked down until July, and maybe after, is "caution, at the most extreme level" and it is leading to "state control of our lives" at a higher level than during World War II.
"The average [COVID] death rate in Britain for the last two weeks is 11 people every day," Farage continued. "We have far more suicides, on some days more road traffic accidents then we do with people dying with COVID on their [death] certificates."
Johnson said Monday he was pushing back the planned reopening for another four weeks due to the spread of the virus' Delta variant, the The Associated Press reported.
He estimated two-thirds of the British population will have been double vaccinated by July 19.
During a tour of a vaccine lab, Johnson said the lockdown could be further extended because of the unknowns involved.
"You can never exclude that there will be some new disease, some new horror that we simply haven't budgeted for, or accounted for," Johnson said.
As of Tuesday, the World Health Organization reported the United Kingdom had 4.6 million confirmed cases of COVID infection and 127,981 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic.
According to the WHO, the U.K. had 10,467 new cases in the past 24 hours and five deaths.
Farage said he had just returned to the U.K. from Florida in the United States and felt the state's Gov. Ron DeSantis was doing a better job by keeping the state mostly open during the pandemic.
He said DeSantis' handling of the crisis was a "grown-up policy" that had little difference in the death rate compared to other states with severe lockdowns.
"We have Germany for example, in Berlin the nightclubs are open," he said. "Most of America is open. Hungary had a soccer game the other day with 60,000 fans there. And here we are with Boris saying 'some new disaster may befall us.' Well, yes, there could be a meteorite hit for all we know. We never know what's around the corner."
Note: See Newsmax TV now carried in more than 100 million U.S. homes, on DirecTV Ch. 349, Dish Network Ch. 216, Xfinity Ch. 1115, Spectrum, U-verse Ch. 1220, FiOS Ch. 615, Frontier Ch. 115, Optimum Ch. 102, Cox cable, Suddenlink Ch. 102, Mediacom Ch. 277, AT&T TV Ch 349, FUBO and major OTT platforms like Roku, YouTube, Xumo, Pluto and most smart TV’s including Samsung+, Sony, LG, Vizio and more – Find All Systems that Carry Newsmax – Click Here
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.