Farage’s Brexit Party hit by split a week before election

LONDON — One week before Britain votes in a national election, fractures were emerging Thursday within jittery political parties unsure how a volatile electorate will judge them.

The Brexit Party led by Nigel Farage, which became the U.K.’s top party in European elections earlier this year, saw four senior officials quit with a broadside accusing Farage of putting Britain’s exit from the European Union at risk.

Meanwhile, Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson and main opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn both faced criticism of their moral character.

Appearing on “This Morning” — a morning talk show — Johnson was asked about a 1995 magazine article in which he called the children of single mothers “ill-raised, ignorant, aggressive and illegitimate.”

“You must be able to understand how hurtful that is to someone’s feeli ngs,” host Holly Willoughby said.

Johnson dodged the question, saying “I don’t think this is the time to talk about articles that were written a very long time ago.”

Johnson also has made offensive comments much more recently, including a newspaper column last year in which he called Muslim women who wear facecovering veils “l etter boxes.”

Asked about that and other comments, Johnson has said he’s sorry if his words caused hurt — but hasn’t apologized for writing them.

All 650 seats in the House of Commons are up for grabs next week.

Johnson pushed for the December vote, taking place more than two years early, in hopes of winning a majority and breaking Britain’s political impasse over Brexit.

He says that if the Conservatives win, he will get Parliament to ratify his Brexit divorce deal and take the U.K. out of the EUby the Jan. 31 deadline.

Labour says it will negotiate a new Brexit deal, then give voters a choice between leaving on those terms and remaining in the bloc. It has a radical domestic agenda, promising to nationalize key industries and utilities, hike the minimum wage and give free internet access to all.

Labour’s campaign has been dogged by allegations that leader Corbyn — a champion of the Palestinians — has allowed antiJewish prejudice to fester in the left-of-center party.

On Thursday, the Jewish Labour Movement campaigning group, said it had compiled sworn statements from 70 present and former Labour members and staffers. They include allegations of verbal and online abuse of Jewish members and claims that party officials blocked complaints from being properly investigated.

The statements have been submitted to the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, which is investigating alleged antiSemitism in the party.

Sam Matthews, a former head of Labour’s legal department, said he and his team had not received “support from those above us to tackle the problem effectively.”

Corbyn has called antiSemitism “a poison and an evil in our society” and says he is working to root it out of the party.