"Nigel Farage's Brexit celebration is nonsense and should not happen"

6 January 2020, 16:16 | Updated: 6 January 2020, 20:00

Sir Ed Davey told Shelagh why Nigel Farage's plans to have a Brexit celebration is "nonsense" and should not happen.

The leader of the Brexit Party wants to organise a celebration in Parliament Square to commemorate the UK's departure from the European Union.

LBC's Shelagh Fogarty pointed out that Parliament Square was a "forum for protest" during Brexit and asked Lib Dem's Sir Ed Davey whether Nigel Farage should be given this space to celebrate.

Sir Ed said that the space is usually used for people to come and make their case and be heard and to use it for a party "seems the wrong thing to me."

Shelagh asked if this was less a celebration and "more like gloating."

"I don't think it's very unifying," said the Lib Dems' acting leader of the Commons, "we want to unify the country to learn the lessons.

"Of course the Mall, round Buckingham Palace, when we've had major historical events in our country's history, for example VE Day when we defeated Nazi Germany, that bought the country together. We'd come out in our public spaces and celebrate together. Quite right.

"I don't think that's right with Brexit. Nigel Farage knows this that this has divided the country. The idea that a party in Parliament Square will be a way of bringing the country together is quite literally nonsense," said Sir Ed Davey.

If he were Sadiq Khan, he said, he'd "absolutely say no."