Breitbart London Editor-in-Chief Raheem Kassam has said the recent poll surge for Leave in the European Union (EU) referendum campaign shows how ‘populist’ ideas on immigration and nationhood can win out over Establishment scaremongering.

Speaking on Breitbart News Daily, Kassam said there is now “momentum” on the Leave side since Vote Leave, the official campaign group for Brexit, started focusing on immigration.

“We’re looking at the major argument beginning to play out on immigration, on sovereignty, on nationhood and the big ‘populist’ narratives are really beginning to cut through,” he said.

However, Leave are not home and dry yet as there has been a huge rise in the number of young people – who overwhelming back Remain – registering to vote.

“We broke the news yesterday that the government alongside its partners in the BBC, in Facebook and a bunch of other left-wing institutions have been pushing mass voter registration among young people” who will overwhelmingly vote Remain.

“I wouldn’t put it past the Establishment to have spent millions upon millions of pounds of taxpayer money registering voters who they couldn’t even be bothered to register for the general election for this referendum,” he added.

The poll bump comes ahead of two televised Town Hall discussions, one with UKIP leader Nigel Farage and the second with Prime Minister David Cameron. Kassam pointed out that there should have been a head-to-head debate, but the Prime Minister insisted on going separately because he knew Mr Farage would beat him.

He is not the only one scared of the UKIP leader. Kassam pointed out the Vote Leave, the Establishment Brexit campaign, have been doing their best to sideline Mr Farage because they want to make the campaign more about who gets to run the Conservative Party – Boris Johnson or Michael Gove. Mr Farage cuts through that and represents the British people.

The UKIP leader has also been criticised of pointing out that high immigration leads to rising crime levels, as has already been seen on the European continent.

Kassam commented: “You only need to look as far as the German crime statistics that were released just a couple of weeks ago to see that these things are true and that the German police are unable to deal with this phenomenon.”

“The media has gone wild over [Mr Farage’s comments]. They regard that as tarring every migrant with the rapist brush, which is actually not what he said.”

One reason the media may be reacted so hysterically, he said, is that they all either receive EU funding or are owned by members of the Establishment who have a vested interest in the status quo.

Kassam went on to say that the end result may well depend on the biggest turn out on the day. Although polls show Leave supporters are more likely to turn out and vote, Remain has a more sophisticated ground operation and can call up their supporters to make sure they vote.

There are also parallels with the US election, with insurgent sovereigntists wanting to make their country “great again” and control immigration being met with violent protests from opponents. The difference, however, is that the British media is almost entirely ignoring the “ugly face of Remain”, leaving Breitbart London to pick up the pieces.

Kassam ended on an optimistic note, pointing out that it took 20 years of campaigning, but the government did eventually agree to hold a referendum it did not want.

“We never thought we would have a referendum on this issue this soon, it’s been something that has been pushed for the last 20 odd years… The fact that we have this now speaks not just to the ability of our side to get something done.”

“This is echoing across Europe at the moment with the rise of Marine Le Pen, the rise of the Sweden Democrats, the rise of PEGIDA, the rise of AfD,” he added. “We haven’t lost the argument, and we’re not going away”.