Farage almost blew it for us, claims Vote Leave mastermind

NIGEL Farage almost cost the Leave side victory in the EU referendum, the leader of the Out campaign claimed yesterday.

Dominic Cummings, campaign director of Vote Leave, said that without the Ukip leader’s intervention, the Brexit side would have won by 60 per cent to 40.

In the end, Leave achieved a narrow victory of less than 52 per cent to 48.

Mr Cummings wrote on Twitter: ‘Farage and the idiots around him came within a whisker of losing us the Referendum.’

He added that if Mr Farage had been in charge of the Leave campaign, up to 70 per cent of people would have voted to Remain.

It came after Mr Farage – now Ukip’s interim leader – praised Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump yesterday, saying he had dominated the latest TV debate like a ‘silverback gorilla’. He had earlier said Mr Trump’s obscene comments about women were no more than ‘alpha male boasting’.

Responding to Mr Farage’s remarks, Mr Cummings wrote in a series of tweets: ‘Those who fought me excluding Farage from official Leave campaign may finally see why now, viz Trump defence

‘If Farage’s embarrassing cabal had controlled official campaign, In would have got 60-70 per cent.

‘If Farage had stayed retired in summer 2015, Leave could easily have got 60 per cent win.

‘In focus group after focus group people said “I want to leave but I don’t want to vote for that t** Farage”,’

Mr Cummings also called Mr Farage a ‘vain shallow egomaniac’ who ‘does not speak for a majority’, and said that since the Brexit vote he was now an ‘irrelevant pundit, happily and safely ignored’.