Don’t stop Brexit, Nigel ...stand your troops down

AS A lifelong Labour supporter, urging people to vote for Boris Johnson to keep Jeremy Corbyn out of power was not easy. I was proud to have been Labour MP for Dudley North since 2005 and to have worked for Gordon Brown when he was prime minister.

I have devoted a large part of my life to fighting the Conservatives, but I simply cannot stomach the idea of Jeremy Corbyn in No 10 with his hands on the levers of power.

His position on everything, from Brexit to defence – not to mention his disgraceful failure to tackle anti- Semitism in his party – means he would be a disaster as prime minister.

I am not calling on voters to return Johnson to Downing Street because I have turned my back on Labour and become a Tory. It is because Labour has turned its back on me and millions of decent ordinary party supporters.

I hope and pray that before long, the Labour Party regains its senses with traditional socialist policies. The sooner it does so, the sooner it will be returned to office.

Until then, I feel it is my patriotic duty to do the right thing for my country.

That means supporting Boris Johnson and not Jeremy Corbyn in this election.

I find it shocking that Nigel Farage cannot do the same.

His refusal to stand down hundreds of his Brexit Party candidates is the biggest threat to Johnson’s hopes of success.

Farage has far less of a political leap to make than I did. Unlike me, he is a former member of the Conservative Party.

Also unlike me, he sees eye-to-eye with many Tory politicians who campaigned for Brexit on a wide range of issues.

As for Brexit, it is easy to argue that Johnson’s EU withdrawal deal is not perfect. But there is no such thing as the perfect Brexit deal.

Farage has been arguing for Britain to leave the EU for more than two decades.

Now, with us on the brink of Brexit being delivered, he threatens to derail the whole process.

If he lets Corbyn into No 10, propped up perhaps by the Scottish Nationalists and the Lib Dems, Brexit would at best be delayed indefinitely and at worst never happen.

So why is Nigel Farage threatening to sabotage Brexit?

My theory is that it is all about his giant ego.

It sticks in Farage’s throat that Johnson is about to deliver what he regards as his project.

FARAGE realises that if he was to withdraw Brexit candidates, he would not be able to tour the nation trying to rally his troops with the TV flashlights going off all around.

And that is what he likes best about politics: being the centre of attention.

Indeed, it must hurt him sorely that he has stood for Parliament on seven occasions and lost each time.

Doubtless it will hurt him, too, if Boris Johnson is the man the history books say oversaw Britain’s departure from the EU – with Farage little more than a footnote.

But there are times when a politician must put patriotism before personal pride.

And, Nigel, this is one of them.