I'm a Celebrity: Fred Sirieix exposes Nigel Farage over Brexit's great red tape myth

As you probably know the former Ukip leader, the man who has failed seven times to get elected as an MP, is appearing on I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here. He started off by entering a room full of snakes, the production team know their political metaphors, and then took part in the first bushtucker trial.

His appearance on the show has caused much consternation, with the pressure group Best for Britain launching a boycott campaign. Chief executive Naomi Smith said: “While the thought of Farage mingling with other creepy-crawlies may seem appropriate, anything that normalises or amplifies his toxic views must be opposed.”

And it seems to have worked, with viewing figures for the opening night more than two million people lower than in 2022. That’s a shame really as if they’d watched the second episode, they would have seen Farage challenged over one of the great ironies and lies of Brexit by First Dates' Fred Sirieix.

After saying he thought that Farage’s demonising of immigrants through his infamous ‘Breaking Point’ poster was “shameful”, Sirieix moved onto the topic of post-Brexit red tape. And it’s a subject he’ll be very knowledgeable about, as along with his TV work he worked as the general manager of the Michelin-starred restaurant in the London Hilton hotel in Park Lane for 14 years until 2019.

Getting rid of so-called EU red tape was one of the main reasons Farage and other Leave campaigners gave for quitting the EU. However, now the UK is in the ridiculous situation where British farmers and businesses wanting to export to the EU have mountains of paperwork, while the Brexit-supporting government allows European businesses to carry on exporting to the UK without full checks.

Farmers have told me they believe the government is concerned about food shortages, one of the pre-Brexit warnings from Remainers, and it puts UK businesses at a huge competitive disadvantage. On top of that, the Office for Budget Responsibility estimated that Brexit would reduce the size of the economy by 4%, the same impact as Covid.

On I’m A Celebrity, Sirieix confronted Farage saying: “Brexit has been a big problem because of the red tape. Everything has gone up because 50% of our product comes from Europe, because we can’t grow all our food here. So you have cost the country a lot of money. You’re responsible for that.”

Farage responded: “We can buy food now from all over the world, with less red tape.” Of course, the UK could previously buy food from across the world as part of trade agreements made as part of the EU. But if you ask British businesses, particularly farmers, about the trade agreements our country has entered into, they are damning.

The farmers I have spoken to were universally against these FTAs. Liz Webster, founder of Save British Farming, told me: “There’s no benefit to any of these trade deals, the Australia and New Zealand deals are an absolute disaster for us [farmers]. They’re great for them, but the processors will choose their meat instead of ours, because we’re still tied to high standards.”

While Rutland arable farmer Andrew Brown said: “All these countries they want to do the free-trade deals with have a massive excess of all the things our farmers produce, so sheep meat, beef meat, wheat, oilseed rape. The whole point of free trade, as we saw with the EU, is that you have a level playing field, and it’s up to you to be competitive. 

“But you can’t be competitive, with someone who’s got a completely different rule sheet. That’s a non-fiscal barrier to free trade. The likes of Australia and New Zealand are allowed to use products and techniques that are banned in this country.”

Even former Environment Secretary George Eustice said that the “UK gave away far too much for far too little in return”, and the agreements “were not a very good deal” for Britain. I actually hope that Farage continues on I’m A Celebrity so more of his Brexit lies can be exposed, and the country can see the farce of leaving the EU to have even more red tape.

Ralph Blackburn is NationalWorld’s politics editor based in Westminster, where he gets special access to Parliament, MPs and government briefings. If you liked this article you can follow Ralph on X (Twitter) here and sign up to his free weekly newsletter Politics Uncovered, which brings you the latest analysis and gossip from Westminster every Sunday morning.