Brexit Party MEP's firm featured in 'Brexit readiness' video days after mocking preparations

Brexit Party MEP Lance Anisfeld. Photograph: Isabel Infantes/PA. - Credit: PA Wire/PA Images

A Brexit Party MEP has been showcased in a government ‘Brexit readiness’ video – just days after he mocked the idea of Brexit preparations to a party rally.

Is your business ready for Brexit? 

Watch the video below to see the preparations that @hformanandson have taken??

 Find out more??https://t.co/r0vzP1RQQ2 pic.twitter.com/2IIHZ9UQA5
— HM Government London & South East (@HMGLondonSE) October 1, 2019

A tweet issued by the Cabinet Office in London and the South East featured a 30-second video about the ‘Brexit readiness’ of H Forman & Sons, the family business of Brexit Party MEP Lance Forman.

The high-end smoked salmon company is the only business to have been given an individual showcase of this kind on this government Twitter feed since the ‘Get Ready for Brexit’ campaign launched on September 19.

In the video, which shows footage of the company’s fish storehouse and processing, an export administrator for Forman’s company explains the measures the company has taken.

This amounts to signing up to a DEFRA email, getting and EORI number and “staying up to date on government websites and trying to see all the possible information that’s out there regarding Brexit”.

A still of the ‘Get ready for Brexit’ campaign video featuring a Brexit Party MEP’s business. Picture: HM Government – Credit: HM Government

The inclusion is particularly surprising given that less than a week before the video went out, the MEP mocked the idea of Brexit preparations at party rallies.

On September 27, the MEP related a story from earlier this year to rally attendees in Marsham Street, London, that he had made no Brexit preparations except to “put the champagne on ice”.

He told fans: “At the start of this year I received an email with an online survey asking what have I done to prepare for Brexit.”

He went on to describe how the business, founded in 1909, had survived the big events of the 20th century.

“Brexit by comparison is an absolute doddle,” he claimed. “So I emailed back and I said: ‘nothing’.”

Warming to his tale, he continued: “However I reflected on my response before following up quickly with another email to say I’d made a mistake.

“I had actually made preparations for Brexit: I put the champagne on ice.”

Forman clarified to The New European that his comments on September 27 “refer to our perceived preparedness at the start of the year” and asserted this meant “no contradiction” with the government video.

The government decision to promote a Brexit Party MEP’s company out of the many thousands in London and the southeast is bound to raise eyebrows.

Nigel Farage’s party has been carefully angling for an electoral pact with the Tories, an arrangement that No.10 has publicly rejected out of hand.

The New European has also contacted the Cabinet Office for comment.