Farage Fears Boris Will Sell out Brexit, Throw Country into Crisis by May

Britain's Brexit party leader Nigel Farage speaks during a general election campaign event
LINDSEY PARNABY/AFP via Getty Images
Victoria Friedman

Nigel Farage has warned that if there is a Conservative majority, Boris Johnson will “sell out” Brexit and the country will be thrown into crisis by May 2020.

Speaking at an event in Doncaster on Wednesday, the Brexit Party leader said that if he thought Prime Minister Boris Johnson was going to “get Brexit done”, he would have stood all of his candidates down and supported him.

However, with Mr Johnson pursuing his EU-approved withdrawal treaty, Mr Farage continues to campaign so that his prospective MPs can hold the Tories to account in the House of Commons and ensure Brexit is delivered.

Mr Farage criticised the Conservative Brexit pledges which he branded a “great deception” that would “sell out Brexit”, such as that under the exit treaty, “we’re going to be free, we’re going to be out, we’re going to get back our fisheries, there’ll be no border in the Irish Sea, and assorted other total inaccuracies that we’ve heard”.

“I know if did we get a Conservative majority, that we will be back in crisis by May next year as we face extension to the whole process,” the Brexit Party leader warned.

“I won’t see Brexit sold out and I fear that if Boris gets his majority that is what he will do,” he added.

Mr Farage told BBC radio on Tuesday that “Unless we get a Brexit Party voice in the House of Commons, we are not going to get a realistic Brexit because he’ll push through this new EU treaty as it is.”

Warning that the agreement would result in years of protracted negotiations with the EU, he questioned whether Johnson’s Brexit “will… be recognisable to the 14.7 million voters?”

During the Doncaster speech, Mr Farage predicted that many Old Labour voters simply will not go to the polling stations tomorrow out of disaffection with the direction the party has taken under Jeremy Corbyn, but added: “The Conservatives cannot beat the Labour Party here in Doncaster. They haven’t for 100 years, and they’re not going to tomorrow.”

Mr Farage had offered Mr Johnson an election pact to prevent splitting the Brexit vote. However, the Conservative Party refused; putting country before party, Farage stood down his MPs in Conservative seats.

Mr Johnson, however, did not reciprocate the gesture and is fielding candidates in many Labour Leave strongholds where Mr Farage says the Tories have no chance of winning, and the Brexit Party is campaigning to pick up those disenfranchised Labour voters.

This week, Mr Farage announced that if the UK does leave the EU, he is going to rebrand his Brexit Party the Reform Party and campaign to change British politics, including scrapping the unelected House of Lords.

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