Farage willing to campaign for pro-Leave Tories in electoral pact
Former Conservative donor who now funds Brexit Party says deal would be ‘perfect marriage of convenience’
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NIGEL FARAGE has set out the terms of his offer of an electoral pact with the Conservatives, even suggesting that he could campaign for Tory Brexiteer candidates if Boris Johnson backs a clean Brexit.
The former Ukip leader is demanding that Brexit Party candidates are given free rein to contest Labour-held seats in the North, Midlands, and South Wales that he believes he can win from Jeremy Corbyn.
In return, the new party would stand down some of its 600 candidates from potentially dozens of seats where they would otherwise split the pro-Leave vote, as part of a no-deal alliance with the Conservatives intent on securing the UK’s exit from the EU.
Writing in The Sunday Telegraph, Mr Farage states that he is “100 per cent” sincere in his offer to help Mr Johnson “return to Downing Street”.
“We are not playing political games,” the leader of the Brexit Party says. “I have spent more than 25 years fighting for Brexit. It is now within our grasp.”
Meanwhile, Jeremy Hosking, a former Conservative donor who was the biggest individual contributor to the official Vote Leave campaign, told this newspaper that Mr Johnson’s “mission is simply too ambitious for a single leap” and urged him to enter into a pact.
Mr Hosking, who has now switched to funding the Brexit Party, said of Mr Johnson and his team: “They want to put the Brexit Party out of business, while the Brexit Party wants to be put out of business. Thus it’s a perfect marriage of convenience.”
He added: “Donors realise this ... They would prefer a credible two-step approach to getting out of the current Brexit predicament, rather than a Houdini-style masterstroke.”
Mr Farage is understood to have indicated to Conservative MPs that he could campaign for pro-Leave candidates in constituencies he agrees not to contest, in order to help secure a Commons majority to deliver Brexit.
He has told Conservative figures that he would stand aside for the party in the west of England where the Tories face a threat from the Lib Dems.
Mr Farage has put his proposals to Conservative MPs amid concern within the party that the Tories will fail to secure a majority if an election is held before Brexit has been delivered.
It is understood that no talks have yet taken place with Downing Street. Sources in the Conservative and Brexit parties fear that any pact would be blocked by Dominic Cummings, Mr Johnson’s adviser, who refused to join forces with Mr Farage during the 2016 referendum campaign.
One also said they were concerned that Mr Farage could “overreach” and collapse any future talks by making unreasonable demands.
However, many pro-Brexit campaigners believe that the Prime Minister will be unable to secure a Commons majority if an election takes place before the UK leaves the EU. They fear that many traditional Tory supporters will back the Brexit Party having given up on the ability of the Conservatives to deliver Brexit.
David Jones, a former Brexit minister, said: “A lot of colleagues take the view that if an election is held before Brexit has been delivered then an arrangement would be needed with the Brexit Party in order to make us unbeatable.”
Last week, Steve Baker, the new chairman of the European Research Group of backbench Conservative Eurosceptics, said: “If we have an election before we have left the European Union and the Brexit Party think that we’re heading in a direction which does not deliver our independence from the EU then they will stand candidates virtually everywhere and the result will be as per Peterborough and in Wales, they will result in a Lib/Lab Remain coalition, we will lose Brexit.”