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Michael Gove has dismissed Nigel Farage‘s “nonsensical” accusations that Brexit Party candidates were offered jobs and peerages in return for standing down in the election.
Mr Gove was interviewed on Radio 4’s Today Programme after senior peer Lord Falconer called for a probe into claims Mr Farage and eight senior Brexit Party figures were offered peerages.
In a letter to Metropolitan Police on Friday, Lord Falconer said the “exceptionally serious allegations” should be investigated as a matter of urgency.
But speaking on Saturday, Mr Gove said: “I’ve got great respect for Charlie Falconer (Lord Falconer) but I think that this sounds pretty nonsensical to me.
“The only pact of which I’m aware, the only arrangement of which I’m aware, is the one whereby Jeremy Corbyn has said he would assent to Nicola Sturgeon’s plans for a referendum on Scottish independence.”
Pushed on Brexit Party MEP Ann Widdecombe’s claim that she was offered a role in the next round of Brexit negotiations to stand down, Mr Gove said: “I haven’t spoken to Ann and I don’t know anyone who has spoken to Ann for months now.”
On whether he has asked if the allegation is true, Mr Gove said: “I haven’t asked Ann myself, but I can’t imagine for a second that this is true.”
He added: “This is the first I’ve heard about it and of course I think it’s only right that things that people like Ann say are considered appropriately.
“But I say something else, one of the things that we spelt out during the attempt to get the EU Withdrawal Bill through is that when we move on to the next stage of our relationship with the European Union, we’ll be consulting people from all parties.”
On if it is possible that conversations about involvement in talks have “in broad terms” discussed the offer of jobs or peerages, Mr Gove added: “Not that I’m aware of at all.”
He continued: “All sorts of things might have happened of which I might not be aware.”
Speaking on the Today Programme, Lord Falconer said there is evidence to support claims that members of the Brexit Party were offered peerages to stand aside.
He said: “I’ve seen evidence from Ann Widdecombe that is a film in which first she says first of all that somebody from Number 10, not Boris Johnson, not Sir Edward Lister, not Dominic Cummings, first of all pushed her not to stand with, quote, ‘moral arguments’, then came back and pushed her not to stand on the basis that she be given a place in the negotiating team.
“The law is that if somebody corruptly induces or procures another person to withdraw from being a candidate at an election, that is both a crime and a corrupt practice at an election, which can lead an election to be set aside.”
On the criticism that there is no significant evidence to back up the allegations, Lord Falconer added: “He (Nigel Farage) has. He said in a video ‘eight people were offered peerages, I said Nigel Farage is bypassed, their job was to persuade me to withdraw my candidates’.
“That sounds to me like a corrupt inducement to withdraw candidates. Now whether it turns out to be true or not is a matter for the Metropolitan Police Commissioner and the DPP (Director of Public Prosecutions) to investigate.
“But the idea that there is no evidence is wrong, there is evidence of the people who were trying to be bribed.”
On Friday, Lord Falconer said the allegations must be looked at by police in order to maintain public confidence in the integrity of the election.
The Labour former lord chancellor’s letter, to Dame Cressida Dick and Max Hill QC, refers to Nigel Farage’s claim that he and eight other senior figures within the Brexit Party were offered peerages
Mr Farage has claimed he had repeatedly been offered a seat in the House of Lords, in an attempt to persuade him to “go quietly”.
He said that when that failed, people working “deep inside Number 10” had tried to bypass him by going directly to senior Brexit Party figures and suggesting eight of them could be made peers if they could persuade him to withdraw more of his candidates.
Lord Falconer wrote: “I wish to raise with you as a matter of urgency a number of recent reports in which senior figures in the Brexit Party have alleged that some of their candidates had been approached by the Conservative Party in an effort to persuade them to withdraw their candidacies from the upcoming General Election.”
He added: “I believe these allegations raise serious questions about the integrity of the upcoming General Election, and in particular whether senior individuals at CCHQ or No. 10 have breached two sections of the Representation of the People Act 1983.”
The Prime Minister acknowledged that there may have been “conversations” between senior Tories and people in the Brexit Party.
However, he flatly denied there had been any offers of peerages, saying that was “just not the way we operate”.
