Farage will not run in U.K. poll
06 November, 2019
Nigel Farage, the leader of Britain’s upstart Brexit Party, said Sunday he would not stand in next month’s election, choosing instead to campaign countrywide against British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s EU divorce deal.
“I have thought very hard about this: How do I serve the cause of Brexit best?” he told the BBC’s “The Andrew Marr Show.”
“Do I find a seat and try to get myself into Parliament or do I serve the cause better traversing the length and breadth of the United Kingdom supporting 600 candidates, and I’ve decided the latter course is the right one.”
Farage, an anti-EU campaigner who has stood for Parliament unsuccessfully seven times, set up the Brexit Party this year and swiftly won the most votes in Britain in European elections in May.
His recent announcement that the party would contest every seat on Dec. 12 was seen as a potential setback for Johnson.
It risks splitting the vote of Brexit supporters in an election that will once again pit those who want to leave the European Union against those who want to stay, more than three years after Britain voted to quit the bloc in a referendum.
Farage previously led the UK Independence Party (UKIP). The threat that it might siphon off Conservative votes played a major role in persuading then-Prime Minister David Cameron to hold the 2016 referendum.
Johnson, who wants to win a new mandate to enact his divorce deal with the bloc, said he had ruled out a pact with every other party because it would only make it more likely that opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn would become prime minister.
Johnson’s Conservatives are leading in the polls, but with the country still starkly divided over Brexit, the outcome is highly unpredictable.
Farage said Johnson’s EU deal was “not Brexit” because it would leave Britain tied to EU institutions and rules.
“If Boris was going for a genuine Brexit, we wouldn’t need to fight against him in this election,” he said.Speech
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