Nigel Farage goes to war over Brexit deal in blow to Boris Johnson

Brexit Party leader threatens to fight every seat unless PM agrees poll pact
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Nigel Farage today declared war on Boris Johnson’s plan to leave the EU saying it was “not Brexit”.

The Brexit Party leader threatened to field candidates in all seats in Britain if the Prime Minister refuses to ditch his withdrawal blueprint.

“It’s not Brexit ... He is trying to sell a secondhand motor,” he said at the launch of his party’s election campaign in central London. “He has polished up the bonnet but actually underneath nothing has changed. This is Mrs May’s appalling surrender treaty. Boris’s deal ... will not get Brexit done.”

Mr Farage urged the Prime Minister to strike a pact with him just hours after Donald Trump’s intervention in Britain’s election, when he called on the two men to join forces to form a Leave alliance for the December 12 poll.

The US president also torpedoed Mr Johnson’s Brexit plan by saying it could strangle, or at least limit, the prospects of a wide-ranging free trade deal between the US and UK.

In addition, he tore into Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, saying he “would be so bad for your country” and insisted that the NHS would not be on the table during UK-US trade negotiations, despite having previously said the opposite.

Mr Farage’s proposed pact would see the Tories give the Brexit Party a clear run at up to 150 Labour-held seats under a Leave alliance which would scrap key parts of the talks with Brussels and instead go for a Canada-style free trade agreement or a no-deal exit from the EU next July.

Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage reacts as he launches his party's manifesto
AP

But Mr Johnson swiftly rejected the offer of a “non-aggression pact” or similar arrangement between the two parties.

Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick had earlier rebuffed Mr Farage’s proposal, saying that the Tories were “not interested in doing any pacts with the Brexit Party”.

Mr Jenrick stressed: “We think that the new deal the Prime Minister has negotiated ... enables the whole of the UK to leave the EU customs union and that means that we can now strike our own free trade deals around the world.”

Mr Farage used the day after Mr Johnson’s “do or die” promise that Britain would leave the EU by October 31 expired to unleash his ferocious attack on his Brexit plans. “I say to Boris Johnson — drop the deal,” he said.

The deadline on his offer was November 14, when nominations for the election close, otherwise “we will contest every single seat in England, Scotland and Wales”.

On Monday, 500 Brexit Party candidates would be in London to sign up for the election, he added.

Mr Farage said Mr Johnson had succeeded in ensuring Britain would not be in a customs union under his Brexit proposals, “but the price of that was appalling... Northern Ireland being hived off, which I think for him personally represented a pretty dreadful breach of the promises that he made at the DUP conference the year before. But it does not end there, of course, because now if this treaty passes it will lead to massive pressure in Scotland for the SNP to campaign for the same thing.”

He also argued it would “kick the can” on Brexit negotiations down the road for another three years, with the aim of “regulatory alignment” with the EU.

Mr Farage asserted: “We will not in any way be taking back control of our laws, our money or our borders.”

He admitted that his strategy could mean that Britain may in the end not quit the EU, because the Leave vote would be split, but he said what was being proposed was not Brexit.

Tory chairman James Cleverly said: “A vote for Farage risks letting Jeremy Corbyn into Downing Street via the back door — and the country spending 2020 having two referendums on Brexit and Scottish independence. It will not get Brexit done — and it will create another gridlocked Parliament that doesn’t work.”

A Conservative HQ source added: “We have been absolutely clear that there will be no pacts.”

The public clash this morning was triggered after Mr Trump broke protocol to wade into Britain’s election during an interview with Mr Farage on LBC Radio last night.

He rejected Mr Corbyn’s flagship election claim that the NHS would be up “for sale” to US medical companies, saying: “It’s not for us to have anything to do with your healthcare system.”

On Mr Johnson’s claim that Britain would be able to do a lucrative free trade deal with the US after Brexit, he said: “To be honest with you, this deal under certain aspects of the deal you can’t do it, you can’t do it, you can’t trade. I mean we can’t make a trade deal with the UK and we can be, because I think we can do many times of numbers that we’re doing right now, and certainly much bigger numbers that you’re doing under the European Union.”

But former international trade secretary Liam Fox said he could not see barriers to a free trade deal with America because the UK was leaving the EU customs union. He suggested Mr Trump might have misunderstood the difference between the legally binding Withdrawal Agreement and the political declaration on the potential future trade ties with the European bloc.

Dr Fox stressed that Britain was not going to “give up” its food standards or regulation of the NHS to get a trade deal with America or other countries, as was made clear during trade negotiations with Canada.

“That is not the Withdrawal Agreement, that is actually a future trade agreement and this is what people don’t seem to necessarily grasp,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“A withdrawal agreement from the EU does not actually determine what our future trading relationship will be ... the political declaration is not legally binding ... it sets the direction.”

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “The PM hasn’t spoken to the President about the deal which was agreed after they were last in touch.

“The PM’s deal takes back control of our money, laws and borders and allows us to do trade deals with any country we choose including the US.”

In the interview, Mr Trump also urged Mr Johnson and Mr Farage to work together, saying: “I’d like to see you and Boris get together cause you would really have some numbers.”

Mr Corbyn hit back, tweeting: “Donald Trump is trying to interfere in Britain’s election to get his friend Boris Johnson elected.”

Mr Johnson’s senior adviser Dominic Cummings has strongly opposed a pact with the Brexit Party, which could target Labour Leave seats in the North and Midlands sought by the Tories.

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