Breitbart London Editor in Chief Raheem Kassam has urged Brexit campaigners to push for the UK to leave the European Union quickly, warning a delay could allow soft Eurosceptics and ‘Remainers’ to keep the country within the block – partly or completely.

Kassam said he had received “over a thousand messages from Leave campaigners, saying ‘we need to invoke Article 50 this week. This ball needs to get rolling’”.

He said such people could see that “the establishment is going to try and keep us in some sort of associate [EU] membership, that comes along with still contributing billions of pounds a year to the project; still having freedom of movement, and not addressing the immigration point; and still having [EU] laws on our statute books…”

“This is becoming the new fight; this is where the battle lines are drawn,” he added.

The EU is working towards a form of “global governance”, he said, insisting that “it is not conspiratorial to say that there is a centralised group of people who want to plan how the world’s economy works.”

In 1997 Tony Blair got 13.5 million votes; John Major received 14 million in 1992; the Alternative Voting system was rejected by 16 million in 2011; the Common Market had 17.378 million in 1975, and David Cameron won 10.7 million votes in 2010 and 11.3 million in 2015.

Leaving the EU, however, got a mandate of 17.410 million.

“This is the biggest democratic mandate this country has ever seen,” said Kassam. “This is the ultimate democratic expression, and here you have the global bankers and their institutions such as the European Commission saying: ‘No, you may not have this result’”.

He explained how the world’s financial, business and political elite have pushed for the UK to remain in the EU, and might now do all they can to stop it leaving after the Brexit vote.

“And I’m afraid that people like Boris Johnson are not man enough to stare them down,” he said.

Kassam explained the complexities surrounding Article 50 and other possible legal mechanisms available for leaving the EU, and how the myriad of different ways the process could be delayed or even halted.

“It’s a really difficult situation. But, it’s one that I think the official ‘Leave’ campaign side, and even… Nigel Farage and the UKIP side… don’t really have their heads around at the moment.

“They don’t understand the urgency out there in the country. They don’t understand how worried people are about this. They don’t understand that people want out now, not in two years.

“And I think actually, it’s going to require somebody… to put pressure on those people…” he said, adding: “I wonder who that could be?”