Farage’s Brexit Party ‘cost the Tories a record 30 more seats’
BORIS JOHNSON could have won a majority of more than 110 MPS if the Brexit Party had not fought the election, according to an analysis of the seats the Conservatives came closest to taking.
The figures suggest some of the biggest names in Labour could have been ousted if Nigel Farage’s outfit had not taken pro-brexit votes.
Labour figures who may have been saved because the Brexit party fought the election include Ed Miliband, Yvette Cooper, Ian Lavery and Jon Cruddas.
The Tories shocked commentators by winning an 80-seat majority – but an examination of the 50 seats where the Tories lost by the smallest margins shows that in more than 30 the number of Brexit votes was greater than the winner’s margin of victory. Leading Tory Brexiteer Andrew Bridgen said: “There is no doubt the Brexit Party is the reason a lot of Labour MPS like Ed Miliband are still in Parliament.”
The Brexit Party agreed not to field candidates in seats the Conservatives won in 2017, but the decision to stand in pro-leave constituencies in Labour’s traditional heartlands may have denied Mr Johnson a more emphatic victory.
Yvette Cooper clung on to Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford with a majority of 1,276, where the Brexit Party took 8,032 votes. Former Labour leader Ed Miliband was re-elected as MP for Doncaster North with a margin of victory of 2,370, less than the 8,294 votes won by the Brexit Party.
Labour chairman Ian Lavery will return as MP for Wansbeck but with a majority of 814.The Conservatives may have taken the seat if a fraction of the 3,141 people who backed the Brexit Party had voted Tory.
Labour won Bedford with a majority of just 145, with the Brexit Party taking 896 votes. It was a similar story in Coventry North West, where the Brexit vote of 1,956 dwarfed Labour’s 208-vote majority.
Labour’s Jon Cruddas may owe his political survival to the Brexit Party. He was re-elected in Dagenham by a majority of 293 in a contest which saw 2,887 votes go to the Brexit Party.
Tory hopes of taking Hartlepool were dashed when Labour won with a majority of 3,595, with Brexit’s Richard Tice taking 10,603 votes. In Wales Labour’s Mark Tami held on to Alyn and Deeside by 213 votes with 2,678 going to the Brexit Party. And the anti-eu party may also have stopped Tories taking Newport’s two seats and helped Plaid Cymru stop the Tories taking one of its four seats.