LONDON/PARIS (Reuters) - A wave of COVID-19 lockdowns and curbs has stirred resistance across Europe, with the right-wing British politician who helped force an EU referendum harnessing popular anger at a new lockdown by recasting his Brexit Party under a new banner.Britain, which has the highest official death toll in Europe from COVID-19, is grappling with more than 20,000 new coronavirus cases a day and scientists have warned the “worst-case” scenario of 80,000 dead could be exceeded. Prime Minister Boris Johnson defended a second lockdown in England from critics who said it was either unnecessary or too late, arguing now was the time to prevent a “medical and moral disaster”. “We are fighting a disease... When the data changes of course we must change course too,” he told parliament. Cast by his supporters as the godfather of the movement to quit the European Union, Brexit Party founder Nigel Farage said Johnson had terrified Britons into submission with a second lockdown. “The single most pressing issue is the government’s woeful response to coronavirus,” Farage and Brexit Party chairman Richard Tice said in a joint article in the Daily Telegraph, announcing his Reform UK party.