Farage says he might support new EU membership referendum

LONDON – Anti-EU British politician Nigel Farage said Thursday that he might support a second referendum on Britain’s European Union membership to kill off any prospect of staying in the bloc.

Britain voted 52-48 percent in June 2016 to leave the EU, after a campaign in which Farage was a key player.

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair and other pro-EU politicians argue that the consequences of the decision were not clear at the time, and that the country should get to vote again.

Former U.K. Independence Party leader Farage he might support such a vote to end “whinging and whining” by anti-Brexit politicians.

He told Britain’s Channel 5 television that voters in a second referendum would reject EU membership in even bigger numbers and “kill it off for a generation.”

Opinion polls suggest Britons remain roughly evenly divided on the subject.

Current UKIP leader Henry Bolton said the party did not support a new referendum because it would “undermine the fabric of our democratic principles.”

And Prime Minister Theresa May’s spokesman, James Slack, was firm.

“We will not be having a second referendum,” he said.