Farage’s secret weapon ... the other Rees-mogg
Annunziata Rees-mogg says she had to defect from Tories to the Brexit Party for the good of the country
Annunziata Rees-mogg, the sister of Jacob, the Tory MP, was unveiled as a candidate for Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party yesterday. She said that although she and her brother had the same aims, she could not remain inside Theresa May’s Conservative Party
SIBLINGS in politics tend to fall into one of two categories, either working as a formidable team, or becoming savage opponents.
And when the family bonds do break, the results can be spectacular: the battle of the Milibands haunted Ed during his leadership of the Labour Party and ended David’s political career.
So when Annunziata Rees-mogg stepped up on to the podium in a chilly metalworks plant in Coventry and announced her candidacy for the European elections on behalf of Nigel Farage’s newly formed Brexit Party, she was keen to insist that, although she was drawing a line in the sand, she was ultimately working towards the same goal as her brother Jacob, the Conservative MP and leading Brexiteer.
“My brother accepted my decision,” Ms Rees-mogg, 40, told The Daily Telegraph after an impassioned launch speech in which she said she had made the painful decision to leave the Tories and would vie to become an MEP in May because “our democracy has been so betrayed” by the Government.
“[Jacob] knows that I feel extremely passionately about this subject and that I felt I had to do something. Do you do what your brother tells you to do? I doubt it.
“Of course, he sees a different way of achieving the same aim, which is to enact the democratic will of 17.4million people and make sure Brexit happens.”
Her brother was quick to express regret that she was leaving his party, saying in a statement: “The Brexit Party is fortunate to have such a high-calibre candidate but I am sorry that Annunziata has left the Conservative Party.”
The pair have always been “very close”, Ms Rees-mogg says. “But we have different views. There is no schism between us. It’s merely how one gets there,” she said.
“He’s got his way, I see my way, but we agree on the end result. I just hope between us we can ensure it happens.”
The decision to leave the Conservative Party, which Ms Rees-mogg joined aged five and first canvassed for at just eight, was by all accounts a painful one.
Driving from the home in Lincolnshire that she shares with her husband Matthew Glanville, a former soldier, and their eight-year-old daughter Isadora, to the industrial estate in Coventry where Mr Farage’s fledgling party chose to host their launch yesterday, Ms Rees-mogg said she felt “very, very sad” to be turning her back on the party she had supported her whole life.
“I didn’t think there would ever come a day where I would feel so let down by my own party,” she said.
“But that day has come. Theresa May has abandoned her membership, just as she’s abandoned the electors in this country. She stood on a manifesto she has not delivered, and it is very clear at this stage she has no intention of delivering it. I felt I had to do something to make sure the people are listened to, and that democracy can survive.”
Ms Rees-mogg, who has twice failed to be elected as a Tory MP, was welcomed on stage by Mr Farage to rapturous applause from more than 150 supporters at the launch.
The former Ukip leader was himself treated like a rock star when he appeared on stage and vowed to put the “fear of God” into MPS, claiming his party had received more than £750,000 in small donations in 10 days. It would accept big donations, he said, but he would be “thrilled” if the party could be bankrolled by ordinary voters.
Ms Rees-mogg, a former journalist who has worked for The Telegraph and once edited The European Journal, said her decision to re-enter politics after eight years as a stay-at-home mother had been incredibly difficult. “I think there are so many things wrong with what’s going on in politics at the moment that it’s deeply unattractive to join it,” she said.
Once thought of as a shoo-in for Parliament when she appeared on David Cameron’s A-list of parliamentary candidates (she is said to have refused to heed requests to run under the shortened name Nancy Mogg), Ms Rees-mogg stood unsuccessfully in the 2005 general election in Aberavon, South Wales, and then again in 2010 in Somerton and Frome.
Just a few hours after Mr Farage’s new party launched, she was already being billed as the “secret weapon” his new party needs. She will form part of what the former Ukip leader calls his “fightback” against a “two-party system ... unfit for purpose”.
The Brexit Party, Ms Rees-mogg said yesterday, must “rescue our democracy” and show that “the politicians are not our masters – they are to do our bidding”. She added: “To leave a party for which I have fought at every election since 1987, from Maggie Thatcher through to Theresa May. I know which one I’d rather have.”
Richard Tice, a multimillionaire property tycoon and founder of the campaign group Leave Means Leave, was unveiled as the chairman of the new party, which claims to have 70
‘There is no schism between us... he’s got his way, I see my way, but we agree on the end result. I just hope between us we ensure it happens’
“high-quality” candidates for the European elections on May 23.
Mr Tice was a co-chairman of Leave. EU, which was fined £60,000 by the Electoral Commission in February for campaign violations in conjunction with Arron Banks’s firm Eldon Insurance. Mr Farage said the party would not take any donations from Mr Banks, who he said had been “very badly burned” since the referendum.
The campaign launch will intensify pressure on Mrs May, with many Tories fearing they will haemorrhage votes.
The Brexit Party was tainted by early controversy when Catherine Blaiklock, its original leader, quit last month after it was revealed she had been retweeting far-right figures. The party has attracted numerous former Ukip members, ostensibly over the far-right focus of Ukip under Gerard Batten.
When asked if she was concerned that the party might share Ukip’s farright focus, Ms Rees-mogg said: “If there are extremists I will leave. It should not be tolerated.”