Arise Baron Farage of Brexit!

NIGEL FARAGE has done the right thing. It won’t have been easy. No politician has ever been so vilified from all sides. he’s been attacked repeatedly, both verbally and physically. he was being set up as the man who wrecked Brexit, a cause he has championed with singleminded courage and determination for three decades.

Yet in announcing that his party was standing aside to give the Tories a clear run in constituencies they already hold, Farage demonstrated true statesmanship. Even that must have been a difficult decision, given that there are plenty of conservative MPs who have spent the past few years trying to frustrate the result of the referendum.

But Farage now accepts that the only way we’re going to escape the suffocating embrace of the European Union is by electing a conservative government led by Boris Johnson.

The alternative is too horrible to contemplate — a cobbled-together coalition of Toytown Trots, tinpot nationalists and tree huggers, which would quickly turn Britain into a bankrupt basket case.

Farage has wisely listened to his friends and sympathisers, not least the thousands of Daily Mail readers who emailed urging him to put country before party. As a supporter of a tungsten- tipped Brexit, Deal or No Deal, I share his suspicion of the terms Johnson has negotiated.

But if the withdrawal agreement satisfies die-hard Leavers such as Arron Banks and Iain Duncan Smith, then it’ll do for me. For now.

You can’t always get what you want.

At least, if Boris wins a working majority, we’ll have a government and Parliament committed to Brexit. That’s not something we could have said at any time since the referendum.

Once we’re out, even halfway out, we’ll have more leverage, not less.

We will be free to negotiate our own trade deals.

If the EU doesn’t want to play ball, there’s a whole wide world waiting out there. We can always walk away, which was never going to happen under Mrs May.

MY HUNCH is that Brussels will bow to the inevitable and act in the best interests of French farmers and German manufacturers, especially if they know they can no longer rely on an entrenched, pro-EU fifth column at Westminster to stick a giant spanner in the works.

The great tragedy of this entire business is that, while Remainers have put aside their differences in their cynical attempts to overturn the result, the Leave side have been hopelessly divided.

Personalities have got in the way of the prize. Even during the campaign, the two Leave camps wasted too much time squabbling with each other.

And after glorious victory was secured in the referendum, against the odds, the Tories scored a spectacular own goal when Michael Gove knifed Boris and launched his own leadership bid.

If Johnson had got the job then, we’d be out by now. There would have been no need for Farage to re- enter the fray. No Mother Theresa nightmare.

Believe me, Farage had no intention of staying in the political arena after the referendum win was secured, even though I thought he should have been handed a key role in negotiating our departure from the EU.

After all, who knows his way around the Brussels cesspit better than our Nige?

he’d given the best years of his life to getting Britain out of the EU, at great personal cost. he’d earned the right to make some real money, broadcasting, joining the lucrative lecture circuit, or even returning to the city to make a few bob playing the stock market.

But he was entitled to expect that mainstream politicians would respect the democratically expressed will of the British people. And when they didn’t, he felt duty bound to do an Arnold Schwarzenegger. he came back. Thanks heavens he did. That we are finally on the brink of escaping from the EU is entirely down to the rise of the Brexit Party.

The Faragistes’ phenomenal performance in the European elections ended the catastrophic premiership of Theresa May, and cleared the way for Boris to seize what he has always considered his rightful destiny.

Yet until yesterday it looked as if the Leave schism could let corbyn stumble his way into Downing Street. That, hopefully, has now been averted by Farage’s decision to stand down his troops in Tory seats.

Of course, it still may not be enough. In a perfect world, the Brexit Party should only be contesting those 40 or so constituencies where they have a realistic chance of turfing out Labour.

I’ve never been a fan of proportional representation, but have to admit that under a different voting system the Brexit Party should hold the balance of power at Westminster.

In the Euro elections, Farage’s crew polled 5,248,533 votes. That’s nine times as many as the SNP.

But while the Scot Nats strut their stuff and talk about backing a corbyn coalition in exchange for another indy referendum, the Bad Boys of Brexit can only hope to deny the Tories a majority. That’s why Farage has taken the sensible course. To claim that he has blinked first, or caved under conservative pressure, is to do him a grave disservice.

This should be a time for Tory gratitude, not gloating.

While realpolitik means that Boris can’t order conservatives to stand down in favour of Faragistes, the Tories could agree not to campaign too hard in the Brexit Party’s target seats. It would be an elegant solution.

EVEN back in May when Mother Theresa was still flogging her dismal, defeatist dead horse ‘deal’, this column proposed an alliance between Boris Johnson and Farage as the only realistic route out of our European purgatory.

Gary caricatured the pair as Morecambe and Wise, above the headline ‘ Bring Me Sunshine, Bring Me Brexit’.

Both men played a key role in securing victory in the 2016 referendum. Both believe Britain has a bright future as a freebooting, sovereign nation, once we cast off the shackles of the sclerotic, corrupt, anti-democratic European superstate.

So what could possibly be wrong with them burying their differences to comprehensively defeat the existential threat to our prosperity and freedom posed by the corbynistas and the Rag, Tag and Bobtail army of Lib Dems, Scots Nats and Greens?

Farage’s magnanimity yesterday was the first real shaft of sunshine in what has up until now been a depressing election campaign. Perhaps today we can breathe a little easier, but there’s still a month to go.

Between now and December 12, Farage has one final service he can perform for our nation, by smashing the Labour vote in Leave- inclined Northern and coastal seats and helping return a Tory government — ideally with a couple of dozen Brexit Party MPs to keep Boris honest.

If he can do that successfully, Britain — and Boris — will owe him big time. he will richly deserve to spend more time with his LBc radio microphone, or on Fox News, or serving as Donald Trump’s warm-up act on the American lecture circuit.

A seat in the Lords (which he claims Boris offered), or a knighthood, should be his reward, as a basis for negotiation. Baron Farage of Brexit has a nice ring to it.

This coalition of Toytown Trots, tinpot nationalists and tree huggers would bankrupt Britain