Brexit Party Odds-on to Win Westminster Seat at Peterborough By-Election, Tories ‘out of the Race’

Nigel Farage Mike Greene
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Oliver JJ Lane

The Brexit Party has been given an 80 per cent chance of getting its first Westminster Parliament seat just two months after foundation by British bookmakers, who have slashed odds on a victory with less than a week to go until the polls open.

The Peterborough by-election, triggered by the first ever successful removal of a sitting Member of Parliament by constituents in a recall petition in the United Kingdom, comes after the sitting Labour MP Fiona Onasanya was found guilty of perverting the course of justice and jailed.

In one of her final acts as a member of Parliament, and while wearing a prison release tag, Onasanya cast the deciding vote on a key piece of anti-Brexit legislation in the Commons. The people of Peterborough, who she represented, voted to leave the European Union in 2016 by a significantly higher margin than the national average, making the seat an obvious target for a Brexit Party riding high on a wave of discontent against both Westminster business as usual and the ongoing betrayal of the Brexit referendum.

Now British bookmaker Betfair has put the odds on the Brexit Party winning next Thursday’s election at a remarkable 1/4, which can also be expressed as an 80 per cent certainty of victory.

Betfair spokesman Katie Baylis told Breitbart London of the odds on the race to send a new Member of Parliament to Westminster: “The Brexit Party are flying high after the European elections and a win in leave-voting Peterborough would be another huge victory for Nigel Farage and his party.

“Punters on Betfair Exchange certainly think that they will claim the seat and they’re currently odds-on at 1/4 to do so with 85 per cent of all money bet on this market on them. Labour at 4/1 face a big battle next week while the Tories are at odds of 33/1 and seemingly out of the race, with the Lib Dems at 41/1.”

The Conservatives on 33/1 equates to a just three per cent chance of the party winning the seat.

The Brexit Party has selected local businessman, charitable benefactor, and television personality Mike Greene to contest the seat — one of a broad range of candidates recently fielded by the party who have predominantly come from outside ordinary political life. Speaking at the time of his selection, Mr Greene said: “The Brexit party is the only party that has absolute clarity of focus on delivering the democratic vote.

“I have a 16-year-old and 20-year-old daughter. If I believed for one second with one cell in my body Brexit would do any harm to their future I would not be [standing].”

If the Brexit Party carried Thursday’s election it would be a remarkable, and quite probably historic, achievement for a party which would be just six weeks old at the time. It would give the Brexit Party their first representation in the Westminster parliament, and only weeks after the party came first in the national election to send Members of the European Parliament to Brussels.

Polling suggests that if support for the Brexit Party holds — and if they succeed in Peterborough, that could be the surest sign yet that it will — then the insurgent force could destroy the legacy parties in a general election.

Figures show the Brexit Party ahead of the Conservatives nationally, and an analysis by a British television station will make worrying reading for the Tories as it shows there are almost no constituencies nationwide they could hold in the face of an unprecedented swing towards Brexit. Other factors will be at play, however, and previous elections in the UK have shown a strong trend for voters backing establishment parties in Westminster votes where they would gladly back insurgents in local and European elections.

Oliver JJ Lane is the editor of Breitbart London — Follow him on Twitter and Facebook

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