BREXIT PARTY LEADER Nigel Farage has attacked three MEPs who’ve quit his party to instead back the Conservative Party.
Annunziata Rees-Mogg, Lance Forman and Lucy Harris, all announced today they were resigning the whip to back the Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s push to “get Brexit done”.
Rees-Mogg, who is the sister of Cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg, accused the Brexit Party of taking votes away from the Conservatives to the benefit of Remain parties.
The Brexit Party announced last month that it would not run any candidates in constituencies where the Conservatives currently hold seats, with Farage arguing this would stop the Conservatives losing MPs in tight constituencies.
The decision has contributed his own party declining in the polls and another MEP John Longworth was sacked by the party for “repeatedly undermining” Farage’s strategy.
Rees-Mogg, MEP for the East Midlands and a former Conservative candidate, said today: “We need a strong Leave-supporting government to deliver the Brexit 17.4 million voted for”.
“In Scotland, Wales and England. The Brexit party are permitting votes to go away from the Conservatives, providing us with a Remain coalition that will do anything not to honour the Brexit referendum,” she added.
Farage has reacted angrily to the departure of the MEPs, accusing them of having personal links with the Tories.
He told the BBC’s Andrew Neil: “One of them is a sister of a Cabinet minister, another one has a boyfriend working for that Cabinet minister, fact, and another one is a personal friend of Boris Johnson’s.”
They joined the coalition that I put together. Now they clearly were disaffected with Mrs May as leader and were not a Conservative Party. And I’ll tell you something, Boris Johnson’s deal unamended is unacceptable and I certainly stand by that.
Annunziata Rees-Mogg rejected speculation that her older brother had influenced her decision, as “disturbingly old-fashioned”.
She said: “I have had no approaches from the Conservative Party in any description, and I am frankly finding it really quite disturbingly old-fashioned that people are suggesting that my brother gets to tell me what to do with my political views – he doesn’t.
“We have completely independent views from each other and I am only concerned about Brexit.”
This latest development comes as UK politicians enter the final week of campaigning ahead of the 12 December general election.
- With reporting by Press Association
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say