Brexit Party Climbdown or Clever Move?

For some months Nigel Farage, leader of the Brexit Party, has approached the Conservative Party to form a Leave Alliance in a General Election. Initially Farage asked Boris Johnson to drop his new Deal with the EU in favour of a clean-break Brexit.

Over the past week huge pressure has been put on the Brexit Party to withdraw their candidates in seats held by the Conservatives. Aaron Banks, who helped fund UKIP, was especially determined, as he had spent most of last year persuading people to join the Tory party, so they could vote in a Tory leadership election for a Brexiteer Prime Minister. Aaron had become so Conservative-supporting, that though it was clear Boris Johnson’s ‘Great New Deal’ with the EU was nothing more than Theresa May’s Withdrawal Agreement Treaty with a few tweaks, he appeared to initially welcome it.

The Brexit Party finally agreed to stand down candidates in Tory seats if this was reciprocated by Tories standing down their candidates in Labour seats. The Conservatives have now said they would stand ‘paper candidates’ in Labour seats, without campaigning, in return for the Brexit Party only fielding about 40 candidates but this suggestion has been rebuffed. These seats have been held by Labour for 100 years with no chance of being won by the Tories and could actually mean that the Conservatives risk splitting the Leave vote by standing in them.

So Nigel Farage and Richard Tice, who head the Brexit Party, have withdrawn 317 candidates in Conservative seats but plan to fight all other Remain constituencies and are still fielding up to 300 candidates. They are going all out to win the Labour vote, with up to 60 rallies planned before the General Election, because there were 5 million Labour voters who voted Leave in the Referendum, which have been let down by Corbyn, who now promotes having a Second Referendum.

It must have been an agonising decision for the Brexit Party because it meant so many people would be disappointed, as they would have no Brexit Party candidate to vote for and some people on Twitter were saying they now don’t want to vote at all. Even worse, some candidates, such as Brexit Party MEP Alexandra Phillips, who was supposed to be standing for the Brexit Party, can neither stand nor vote for the Party. However, Nigel has confirmed that he did clearly tell candidates at the outset that things might change.

Farage and Tice did not stand down those candidates to please either Aaron Banks or the Conservatives. Rather, after conducting their own private polling, they were anxious that if the Brexit Party stood in those Conservative seats, there was a danger of splitting the Leave vote and perhaps letting in Remain Labour or LibDem MPs, as in the Peterborough and Brecon by elections. They were concerned that we might end up with a hung Parliament or Remain Coalition, which would vote for a Second Referendum or worse, revoke Article 50 altogether. That is why the Brexit Party decided to put country before party, but despite making every effort, in effect got nothing in return from the Tories, who have refused to work with them in a Leave Alliance.

Nigel Farage explained why he decided to withdraw his candidates, as last Sunday night he watched a video of Boris Johnson stating that he would definitely finalise a free trade deal with the EU by December 2020 along the lines of Super Canada Plus and that we would not stay in regulatory alignment with the EU. If Brexit Party MPs are elected, Farage intends to hold Boris to those promises, or ‘keep him honest’, as the current Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration does not take us out of the European Union and Farage has even been asking whether Boris has actually read it.

Nigel’s original position has always been to campaign for a clean-break WTO Brexit. Yes, there may be a few things to iron out along the way but a WTO Brexit would have given Brexiteers everything they voted for, a total Leave. In fact at the beginning of the year Richard Tice went to the World Trade Organisation in Geneva to discuss how a WTO Brexit would operate. He was told that under GATT 24, Britain and the EU would be able to continue trading on current terms for up to 10 years until they agreed a trade deal. It would have therefore made sense to leave the EU on WTO rules and negotiate afterwards. Leaving the EU would be a simple matter of repealing the 1972 European Communities Act, which originally made us a member, and repealing this was tied into the UK EU Withdrawal Act 2018, if we had left with No Deal.

Much was made of secret talks with the Conservative Party behind the scenes, although Richard Tice confirmed there were no official ones.  Nigel Farage has stated in an interview on Talk Radio with Julia Hartley Brewer, that the Conservatives had in fact offered him jobs at least 12 times during the past years, including a safe seat in 2005 if he wanted to stand for them.  To all these offers Nigel replied that he is ‘not for sale’.  Julia ended the interview by asking whether, when Brexit is finally done, he would like a seat in the House of Lords, to which Nigel said ‘I don’t want anything’.  He basically said he had spent more than 25 years of his life trying to get us out of the EU and only wants to get Brexit done.   

All of the above has given huge publicity to the Brexit Party, which is only 7 months old. Perhaps at the next General Election, when people have had time to judge the calibre of any incoming MPs, they will vote for them in larger numbers, as Brexit may take a long time!

In the meantime, the public would love to see a Leaders’ Debate between Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson! It has been noticeable during Boris’ hustings and even at the recent Tory party conference, the Tories have been emulating the style of the Brexit Party rallies, with people waving placards. Boris has even been taking on some of the Brexit Party policies, such as regeneration of the North and getting broadband up to speed throughout the UK.

If the Brexit Party can win even 20 seats in the General Election on 12th December, they could ultimately hold a Conservative Government to account, just as the DUP have done. People are expecting the Election to be won by the Tories again, but as many Brexiteers have now been informed of the fact that Boris’ deal with the EU is not a true Brexit, keeping us in regulatory alignment with the EU and not letting us become an independent country, the Tories may not get quite such a big majority. If that were the case, Boris Johnson would have to rely on any Brexit Party MPs for votes and if they were in a strong position, who knows what they could demand in return?