Brexit Party has ‘fundamentally changed’ politics, Farage claims
NIGEL FARAGE claimed to have “fundamentally changed” British politics despite his party’s narrow defeat at the Peterborough by-election.
Mr Farage made a brief appearance at the count in a sign that he may have been expecting victory.
But he later said the result showed that his party had shaken up British politics and called for Tories to vote tactically for the Brexit Party in future Westminster contests.
“What you have seen from this result last night is that British politics has fundamentally changed, it is no longer just two parties contesting,” he said.
Calling for Conservatives to vote tactically for his party, he said: “The danger is that, in seats like this, the Conservatives split the Leave vote.”
Mr Farage later handed a letter in to Downing Street to demand involvement in the Brexit negotiation process.
The letter, addressed to the Prime Minister and copied to all the Conservative leadership candidates, reads: “The electorate have asked for us to come into the negotiating team and we are ready to do so immediately.”
After giving the letter to security staff inside Downing Street, Mr Farage said: “We’ve got 55 days now of total impasse, while the Government spends all its time working out who the next Prime Minister is.
“We’ve only got less than five months until we’re due to leave. We would love to start helping now. This is us saying to you: we’re not a protest party, we actually want responsibility, we want to get involved.”
When asked about losing the Peterborough by-election in which his party’s candidate came a close second to Labour, Mr Farage said: “Did we? I don’t know, if you think zero to 29 per cent in a couple of weeks is losing, then it’s losing.
“From nowhere we produced a phenomenal result.
“If you look at the opinion polls put out by YouGov last night, they actually showed us six points in the lead across the country.
“What you saw last night in Peterborough was too many Conservatives voted Conservative and let Labour win.
“It was a two-horse race between us and Labour.”
From nowhere we produced a phenomenal result.
Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage