Don’t back Brexit Party, says former Vote Leave chief

Ex-Labour MP Stuart fears hung Parliament

THE former Birmingham Labour MP who led the campaign to take the UK out of the European Union has urged voters not to back the Brexit Party in December’s general election.

Former Edgbaston MP Gisela Stuart said a vote for the Brexit Party was “a wasted vote” and could help create a hung Parliament, putting Brexit at risk.

But despite reports that she was endorsing the Conservative Party, she said she was not telling people how to vote.

Mrs Stuart was chairman of the official Vote Leave campaign in the 2016 EU referendum.

She said: “You have to make a decision about what is the most important issue in this election.

“If EU withdrawal is the most important thing then you need a government with a majority. That means the Brexit party is not the answer.”

She added: “This election is different from all the others. That’s because we’ve had the EU referendum but the result still hasn’t been fulfilled.

“For some people this is like any general election, for others this is the referendum election.

“My reason for speaking out is that I think whichever way you come down, the Brexit Party is not the solution. If you care most about implementing the referendum result then a vote for the Brexit Party is a wasted vote.”

Last week former West Midlands Labour MP Ian Austin, who represented Dudley North, urged people to vote Conservative, saying Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was not fit to be Prime Minister.

The Brexit Party has announced it will not stand candidates in seats which the Conservatives won in 2017, in a bid to prevent splitting the pro-Brexit vote.

Leader Nigel Farage told supporters he was putting “country before party” and would be pulling Brexit Party candidates out of the 317 seats won by the Conservatives at the 2017 general election.

It means the pro-Brexit vote will not be split in marginal seats which the Conservatives are defending from Labour or the Liberal Democrats.

Examples include Walsall North, in the Black Country, which the Conservatives took from Labour in 2017 with a majority of 2,601, or 6.8 per cent of the vote.

While we don’t know how many people voted for the Brexit Party in this constituency in the 2019 European Elections, we do know that 43 per cent of voters across the whole borough of Walsall backed Nigel Farage’s party. The results were published at local authority level.

Another example is Telford, in Shropshire, where the Conservatives won with a majority of 720 in 2017, or 1.6 per cent of the vote.

In the Telford and the Wrekin borough, the Brexit Party got 41 per cent of the vote in the 2019 European Elections.

Mr Farage will be bringing his Brexit Party election tour to the Black Country this week following the visit of Boris Johnson to Wolverhampton on Monday.

The former UKIP leader is set to stop off in Dudley and Willenhall on Friday.

The Brexit Party leader said: “We are touring Britain, campaigning for the most important general election of our lifetimes. The December 12 election could finally decide the battle for Brexit.

“I will be addressing Leavers across the country, to make the case for a clean-break Brexit and explain the Brexit Party’s plans to change politics for good.”

This election is different from all the others

Gisela Stuart