Politics

Nigel Farage warns Tory leadership candidates hoping for Brexit deal renegotiation: ‘EU won’t change one dot or comma’



Nigel Farage has warned Tory leadership candidates claiming they could renegotiate a better Brexit deal than Theresa May that the EU is not prepared to change “one dot or comma”.

The Brexit Party leader took aim specifically at Jeremy Hunt, one of 11 candidates to have launched a bid for the Conservative crown, who said a no-deal outcome would be “political suicide”.

Speaking on his LBC show from Brussels, Mr Farage mocked the Foreign Secretary’s claim he will “change” the withdrawal agreement and branded his pledge “absolute rubbish”.

Mr Farage said: “Every single person here in the European Commission, and leading groups in the European Parliament, will not change by one dot or comma that withdrawal agreement. 

Nigel Farage, pictured here as his Brexit Party’s European election sucess became clear, has issued a warning to Tory leadership hopefuls (PA)

“And it’s not an agreement, it’s a treaty… Michel Barnier walks around with it under his arm. So I think that side of the argument is absolute rubbish. He [Mr Hunt] is also pledging to create a new negotiating team. I wonder where he got that idea from.

Mr Hunt had earlier warned that the Tories would be committing “political suicide” by pushing through a no-deal Brexit. Writing in the Daily Telegraph, he said any Prime Minister who tried to leave the EU without a deal would trigger a general election which risked the “extinction” of the Conservative Party.

Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt: No Deal would be political suicide (AFP/Getty Images)

Mr Hunt said: “The results contain a simple message which we ignore at our peril: if we attempt a general election before we have delivered Brexit we will be annihilated. Attacked by the Brexit Party on the Right and the Liberal Democrats on the Left, we will face extinction. 

“Any candidate for prime minister whose strategy leads inexorably to a general election is offering a prospectus for disaster. Trying to deliver no deal through a general election is not a solution. It is political suicide that would delight Nigel Farage and probably put Jeremy Corbyn in No 10 by Christmas.”

Mr Hunt, International Development Secretary Rory Stewart and Justice Secretary David Gauke tore into the hardline approach being pursued by Boris Johnson, Dominic Raab, Andrea Leadsom and Esther McVey for the UK to leave on October 31, with or without a deal.

Mr Stewart attacked no-deal Brexiteers for “Wizard of Oz” thinking and vowed to vote against such a move “without hesitation”.



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