Farage: We won’t be bought
Nigel Farage has claimed that he was twice offered a peerage and that a senior colleague was offered a safe Tory seat in a bid to persuade the Brexit Party not to run against the Conservatives in the UK general election.
The Brexit Party leader said the Conservatives had tried to ‘‘buy’’ his backing with ‘‘Christmas baubles’’ but added: ‘‘We won’t be bought.’’
The claims emerged after Farage on Saturday issued Boris Johnson with an ultimatum: his party will have candidates standing in every constituency in Britain unless the prime minister ditches his deal with Brussels and agrees to leave the EU on World Trade Organisation terms after the election on December 12.
He gave the Tories until nominations close on November 14 to decide and also threatened to send an election address to all 27 million households in Britain explaining why Johnson’s deal ‘‘is not Brexit’’.
Farage has not met or spoken to Johnson since he became prime minister, but has been in regular dialogue with Tory MPs such as Andrew Bridgen, Richard Drax and – before she returned to the cabinet in July – Priti Patel, who is now home secretary. He has talked to them about the prospect of an electoral pact.
Johnson last week ruled out any pact, a view shared by his closest aide Dominic Cummings. But Farage said that some in Downing Street want to see at least an informal deal with the Brexit Party: ‘‘Cummings doesn’t want it, but there are a couple of cabinet ministers saying, ’You should think about it.’’’
Sources in the Tory party said that as well as ‘‘sounding out’’ Farage about a peerage and ‘‘dangling’’ a safe seat before a senior Brexit Party official, at least one other party MEP had been informally approached about whether they wanted to stand as a Conservative at the election.
Farage said: ‘‘All sorts of baubles have been offered.’’ Of the peerage, he said: ‘‘That happened twice, but we are going back a couple of months. They thought the deal was that if I accepted that, we would only fight a few seats.
‘‘That came from two very close sources – one from an adviser and one a minister, not a member of the cabinet, suggesting this was the right thing to do. I said I was not interested. ‘‘One of my very close colleagues was offered one of the safest Conservative seats in the country yesterday morning. A very senior figure. They rejected it outright.’’
Party sources suggested the offer was made to Richard Tice, the Brexit Party’s chairman and an MEP, who last year sought to run as the Tory candidate for London mayor. Tice did not deny that he had been offered a seat, but said: ‘‘There are no circumstances in which I would defect to the Tories.’’
Farage said: ‘‘They think everyone is like them. There are two kinds of people in politics: those who want to do something and those who want to be somebody.’’ – Sunday Times