Published: 7:51 AM September 17, 2018 Updated: 6:27 PM September 17, 2020

Nigel Farage was left rattled in a televised debate as he was forced to admit that the Brexit vote was a political move that had little to do with economics.

During a heated tussle with The New European's editor Matt Kelly the hardline Brexiteer claimed his support for exiting the European Union had little to do with the country being better off.

'This is about politics,' the former UKIP leader told Good Morning Britain. 'We have voted to run our own country, for better or worse, richer or poorer, 'til death do us part.'

The revelation came as Kelly pointed out crashing out of the EU would leave the country facing dire economic consequences. Farage stumbled through the debate even denying G7 growth figures showing the UK was lagging behind.

'One of the reasons is you, Nigel - terms like 'sovereignty', 'freedom of the people' and 'will of the people'.

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'We were masters of our own economy when we chose to enter the European Union because we believed it was good for our economy – and it was good for our economy. We were the fastest growing economy in the G7 before this, now we're the slowest.'

'We're not the slowest,' complained Farage, 'stop lying with the figures. Italy is the slowest growing economy.'

He added: 'No one cares about the economics, no one believes the economics. This is simple, it's not about me saying we'd be better off or you saying we'd be worse off, it's about do we govern our own country or don't we?'

But Kelly snapped back: 'Nigel is full of his abstracts, I suggest that we are a free country and it's insulting to claim that Westminster isn't sovereign.'

He added: 'What I'm more interested in is the people who voted in good faith in Sunderland, in the north east, and Wales, who voted believing almost overnight their lives are going to improve ... where is the obvious upside now?'

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