Farage accused of denying Tories three-figure Commons majority
NIGEL FARAGE has been accused of blocking some Tory Brexiteers from becoming MPs after standing unsuccessful candidates in seats the Conservatives might otherwise have won.
Several Tory candidates who lost out to Labour MPs claimed that the Brexit Party had drawn vital pro-Leave votes away from them.
In the most prominent case, Richard Tice, the Brexit Party chairman, came third in Hartlepool after attracting a quarter of votes cast.
In 39 seats, the Tory and Brexit Party vote combined was higher than the winning party, prompting speculation that the Conservatives could have won a triple-digit majority if Mr Farage had not run against them.
Last night, a Brexit Party spokesman hit back against suggestions the party had cannibalised the Conservative vote. “They’re trying to pretend that they’re the only people in the world and that they own Brexit,” the spokesman said. “Who do they think got rid of Mrs May? It wasn’t that cowardly bunch of no-hopers.
“It is very dangerous, this sort of thinking. They’ve got a big majority. If that is how they’re starting to talk now, what’s going to happen in a year’s time when they’ve been sitting on this fat majority and passing whatever they want through Parliament?”
During the election campaign, Mr Farage insisted his presence was more likely to damage Labour than the Tories, and pointed to his decision not to stand against Tory incumbents as evidence he supported Mr Johnson in winning a majority.
He pitched the Brexit Party as a tempering influence on a Conservative majority government, arguing that it would hold Mr Johnson to a Canada plus-style trade deal.
But Christopher Howarth, the Tory candidate in Houghton and Sunderland South, claimed he lost the election because the Brexit Party stood against him. “It was always clear that there was a massive anti-Labour vote that wanted to vote for the best option to [oust] them,” he told The Sunday Telegraph.
Mark Francois, the European Research Group’s deputy leader, suggested the Tories could have won more than 100 seats if Mr Farage had not launched the Brexit Party in January, giving them the biggest majority since Tony Blair’s second victory in 2001.
“The Conservatives had such momentum on the night, no pun intended, that without Brexit Party candidates getting in the way, we almost certainly would have achieved a majority in three figures, rather than two,” he said.
“Nevertheless, we have a good working majority to achieve Brexit on Jan 31, after which the Brexit Party has no further reason to exist.
“History will praise Nigel Farage as a man without whom we probably never would have had an EU referendum in the first place, but the tactics of his final battle, he got it slightly wrong.”
Other seats in the North that may have turned blue with the help of Brexit Party votes include Barnsley East, Doncaster North and Hull West, where Michelle Dewberry, the former Apprentice star, stood for the Brexit Party.