Farage, the former leader of the U.K. Independence Party, is spearheading a new vehicle -- the Brexit Party -- which launched its campaign for next month's European Parliament elections on Friday.

Addressing more than 100 supporters at a metalworking factory in the pro-Brexit city of Coventry, England, Farage slammed the political establishment as incompetent and said he'd placed a 1,000-pound ($1,300) bet on his party coming top in the elections. He also announced Annunziata Rees-Mogg -- sister of Jacob, a darling of the Brexiteer wing of the ruling Conservatives -- as a Brexit Party candidate.

"What we've seen over the course of the last few weeks is the willful betrayal of the greatest democratic exercise in the history of this nation," he said, sporting a blue suit and socks adorned with the British flag. "We are lions led by donkeys."