Farage tells Tories: Step aside and I’ll beat Corbyn
Nigel Farage demanded Conservative MPs stand aside and give his Brexit Party a free run in labour seats – saying his was the only group that could stop Jeremy Corbyn.
Speaking at a rock concert-style event yesterday, Mr Farage said he was not leading ‘a protest movement’ as he unveiled the party’s first 100 candidates to stand at any snap general election.
And he took a swipe at Tory leadership favourite Boris Johnson, saying: ‘You can try if you want but i will not be put back in my box’. Mr Farage was introduced to more than 5,000 supporters in Birmingham who were carrying Brexit Party glowsticks, with an air raid siren booming out.
Tearing into labour Mr Farage said: ‘There are many seats in the country, especially labour-held seats, where we are the main challenger.
‘if you vote Tory you will get Corbyn and you should stand aside for the Brexit Party, who can beat him in these constituencies.’
Mr Farage’s party – launched in April – stunned Westminster in May as it garnered more votes than the Tories and labour combined at the european elections.
But it has yet to win a Commons seat after narrowly losing in Peterborough last month. The Brexit Party plans to put up candidates all over the country if a general election is called before the UK has left the european Union. The candidates were paraded before the audience at the Big Vision Rally by Annunziata Rees-Mogg, a former Tory who is now a Brexit Party MeP.
Bizarrely, despite the 100 candidates appearing on stage, the party declined to name any of them last night.
At the flashy event which seemed more akin to the atmosphere of a darts or boxing match, Miss Rees-Mogg warned that the party wanted to shake up the current status quo.
‘MPs sitting in their offices in the Westminster bubble should be scared,’ she said. ‘We are not the same old, same, old.’
The unveiling of a group including teachers, civil engineers, economists and a forklift truck driver came as rumours continue to circulate that the country may head to the polls in the autumn as the Tory government seeks to complete Brexit.
Brexit Party chairman Richard Tice told the crowd the party would have 650 candidates ready to stand by the time the Tories finished with ‘the blond and the bland’ – a jibe at Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt’s leadership campaign.
He said: ‘We want to be the biggest party in Westminster. That is what today is about, we have to keep heading forward.’
Mr Tice also revealed that the group would reject a traditional party conference in September in favour of 11 regional rallies. The party unveiled plans for £200billion to transform the British regions in the largest investment since the war. The bold plan includes rebuilding the transport system, free broadband for all homes and scrapping interest payments on student loans.
it plans to fund the huge cash injection in areas outside london by refusing to send Brussels the £39billion Brexit ‘divorce bill’, scrapping the £14billion foreign aid budget and abandoning the £100billion HS2 highspeed rail project. But that would still leave the party needing to find an extra £47billion from other sources.
Mr Farage’s party may be yet to win a Westminster seat but it has heavily cut into Tory support as the party fights itself over Brexit and seeks a new leader.