Farage ready to stand after new party wins official recognition
A NEW Brexit party backed by Nigel Farage was officially recognised yesterday by the electoral regulator.
The Electoral Commission said the ‘Brexit Party’ is an official organisation which will allow it to field candidates at elections.
Former Ukip leader Mr Farage said ‘the engine is running’ and he stood ‘ready for battle’ to fight the Tories and Labour.
He said he would stand for the new Brexit Party if the UK’s departure from the European Union was delayed.
Brexit is due to take place on March 29 but Mr Farage said that if MPs ‘kick the can down the road’ by extending Article 50 ‘then logically we would have to fight European elections and I would certainly stand in them in those circumstances’.
Mr Farage said that the registration of the Brexit Party should be a warning to MPs considering backing any effort – such as the move championed by Labour’s Yvette Cooper and Tory Nick Boles – to extend Article 50 in order to allow more time for negotiations.
MPs considering such a move ‘need to be aware there could be a very serious electoral threat to them,’ he added.
The Brexit Party’s leader is former Ukip candidate Catherine Blaiklock.
She is hoping it can field candidates for the European Parliament elections in May if Brexit is delayed past that date.
Mrs Blaiklock told the Telegraph that ‘a number of hundred’ Conservative members had been in touch to say they wanted to defect to the new party and the figure was likely to rise to thousands.
She failed to win Great Yarmouth for Ukip in the 2017 general election after brandishing a large photograph of her Jamaican husband at one hustings.
Mrs Blaiklock used the photograph to demonstrate that those in the party were not racist, later telling Vice: ‘I sleep with somebody who is black.’
‘Very serious electoral threat’