A Brexit Party candidate running for a seat in Bedfordshire has defended her support for a no-deal Brexit while making use of freedom of movement in Italy.
Amanda Hunter, a freelance teacher who until recently listed Friuli-Venezia Giulia in Italy as her location on social media, said she saw no irony in advocating a no-deal Brexit while taking some of the benefits of EU membership.
Her biography explains she is “widely travelled” having lived in Spain, Greece and Italy as well as non-EU countries.
She explains on Twitter she has spent 20 years living in Italy and was still answering media questions from the country this week.
She claimed that others would be able to still take advantage of freedom of movement beyond Brexit as eventually there would be a deal.
Speaking to Bedford Today‘s Ben Raza, she said: “It wouldn’t stop young people doing what I’ve done.
“As far as I know, there’s an agreement between Italy and the UK.
“There’s an agreement that would allow me to stay here in Italy because I’ve been working for so long. It’s like having settled status in Britain.”
Hunter, who now says she lives in St Neots in Cambridgeshire, argued that Brexit was mostly about “democracy” and the ability to self-govern.
She continued: “For me, Brexit is about democracy.
“It’s about people having the right to govern themselves and be governed by their own laws. And it will be done once we’ve left the EU.”
On Twitter Hunter says she has campaigned for “Italexit” and wants to see all European nations leave the EU.
She wrote: “I want freedom and democracy for all European nations, not just Britain, which is why I campaigned for Italexit while I lived in Italy, and support all democratic movements to leave the EU. My motives for fighting for Brexit are not nationalist, far from it.”
Hunter has been approached by The New European for further comment.