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Brexit party leader Farage says he will not stand in election


Nigel Farage, leader of the Brexit party, will not stand for election to parliament in the forthcoming election in order to focus on running the campaign instead.

Mr Farage, who has tried and failed on seven occasions to become an MP, told the BBC’s The Andrew Marr Show that he believed he would be better deployed campaigning on behalf of his party’s 600 candidates.

The former leader of Ukip announced on Friday that he would campaign against Boris Johnson’s Conservative party unless the prime minister dropped his exit deal with the EU.

“I’ve thought about it very hard. I thought ‘How do I serve the cause of Brexit best?” he told the BBC. “Do I serve the cause better traversing the length and breadth of the United Kingdom supporting the 600 candidates?”

The fact that the Brexit party is barely in double-digits in the opinion polls may have influenced Mr Farage’s decision not to stand for election.

Mr Farage rejected the idea that he would have enthusiastically accepted the Johnson deal had it been offered to the UK a few years ago. “I’d have said sling your hook . . . A gigantic con. We should not sell out to this, it’s a Remainer’s Brexit . . . go through this route we’ll end up rejoining.”

Arron Banks, the tycoon who funded Leave.EU during the 2016 referendum, told the Mail on Sunday that the cause of Brexit would be better served if the Tories won a healthy majority in the election. Mr Farage was being a “dog in the manger”, he said.

Mr Farage said Mr Johnson was offering a deal that involved “close linkage with the European institutions” with three more years of negotiations.

Rishi Sunak, chief secretary to the Treasury, said the Johnson deal delivered an end to freedom of movement and payments to the EU while also delivering an independent trade policy. “What I’d say to Nigel Farage is sometimes in politics as in life, you’ve got to take yes for an answer,” he said.

Mr Sunak played down the idea of any kind of pact between the Tories and the Brexit party, saying: “I don’t think we’re interested in offering anything” to Mr Farage.

Mr Johnson, interviewed on Sky News, criticised Labour’s policy of offering a second referendum, arguing that it would be “crazy and debilitating” and involve yet more “toxic, tedious trauma”.

“Do you want it to be all about Brexit yet again with another referendum on Brexit, a referendum on the break-up of the union . . . or do you want it to be about the UK taking its place doing trade deals around the world?” he said.

Rebecca Long-Bailey, shadow business secretary, said Labour would seek a more credible deal that would be better for the economy before putting it back to a vote. This would be a “referendum of sorts”, she said, insisting it would not be a rerun of 2016.

Jo Swinson, leader of the Liberal Democrats, criticised Mr Johnson for his “stupid promise” that Britain could leave the EU by October 31 without a clear plan. “He only has himself to blame for making a promise he shouldn’t have made in the first place,” she told Sky News.

The main political parties are all trying to come up with eye-catching election policies to try to win over floating voters ahead of polling day on December 12.

Labour announced on Sunday that it would help fund the biggest upgrade to UK housing since the second world war through a mass programme of insulation and renewable technologies. Its “Warm Homes for All” programme would involve £60bn of upgrades to low-income households over a decade, with more affluent households receiving interest-free loans to upgrade homes.

The Conservatives pledged an end to the benefits freeze with a 1.7 per cent rise in welfare payments such as universal credit and jobseeker’s allowance as well as a 3.9 per cent rise in the state pension. The benefits freeze, first announced in the 2015 Budget, was meant to last until the end of the current financial year — although in theory the government could have extended it further.



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