Brexit Party leader: Ditch ‘sellout’ deal

Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage threatened to fight for every seat in the Dec. 12 election if Prime Minister Boris Johnson refuses to abandon his divorce deal with the European Union and commit to a clean break.

Speaking at the launch of his party’s campaign at an event in central London on Friday, Farage said the “sellout” deal agreed by Johnson on Oct. 17 “isn’t Brexit” and he will make sure every voter knows that before they go to the polls.

In other developments on the campaign trail on Friday:

• Johnson hit back at President Donald Trump’s claim that his Brexit deal would prevent a U.K.-U.S. free trade agreement in the future because it binds Britain too closely to EU rules. “I don’t wish to cast any aspersions on the President of the United States, but in that respect he is patently in error,” Johnson told Sky News.

• ITV announced Johnson and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn will face each other in a TV debate on Nov. 19.

Farage is playing hardball. He wants to agree to a “non-aggression pact” with Johnson in which Conservative candidates would stand down in seats where his party is well placed to beat Corbyn’s Labour.

“There are around 150 seats in this country that are Labour-held constituencies that the Conservative Party have never ever won in their history,” Farage said. “The only way to solve this is to build a leave alliance across the country.”

Tory activists have warned that the Brexit Party could split the antiEU vote, costing the prime minister’s party seats it could otherwise win. Johnson rejected Farage’s call for the parties to work together.

“Voting for any other party simply risks putting Jeremy Corbyn into No. 10 [Downing St., the prime minister’s residence], and the problem with that is his plan for Brexit is basically yet more dither and delay,” Johnson told BBC TV later on Friday.