Boris Johnson has denied doing a deal with Nigel Farage in 2019 as the ex-Prime Minister bemoaned how the Tory Party “machine-gunned” support to Reform UK, Labour and the Liberal Democrats.
Johnson, 60, sat down with Camilla Tominey on GB News to discuss his premiership ahead of the release of his tell-all memoir “Unleashed” on October 10.
The former Prime Minister, who was forced out following a Cabinet cabal in the summer of 2022, addressed the rise of Reform UK and even shed some light on discussions with the Brexit Party ahead of his thumping victory in 2019.
Farage decided to stand down 317 Brexit Party candidates in seats held by the Tory Party as Johnson returned from Brussels with a revamped withdrawal agreement.
The decision ensured the pro-Brexit vote was not split as Johnson plotted a return to Downing Street against ex-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.
When asked if a deal was made with Farage in 2019, Johnson told GB News: “I didn’t do any deal.”
During the 2019 General Election, Johnson rejected a formal pact with Farage.
He said at the time: “The difficulty about doing deals with any other party is that voting for any party simply risks putting Jeremy Corbyn into No10.”
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Ex-US President Donald Trump was among the leading figures pushing for an alliance, describing a Johnson-Farage combination as an “unstoppable force”.
However, it had been reported that Johnson offered to field so-called “paper candidates” in the Brexit Party’s top 40 target seats.
Farage turned down the proposal and instead insisted the Tories should withdraw their candidates from those seats altogether
Ahead of the 2024 General Election, Farage revealed the offers he allegedly received from close allies of the former Prime Minister.
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Boris Johnson sat down with Camilla Tominey
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“Boris is too clever for that,” the Reform UK leader said. “I mean like no fingerprints on it.”
Farage, who romped to victory in Clacton to end his electoral hoodoo on July 4, added: “I wouldn’t take a peerage because I said I wouldn’t take a peerage under any circumstances.
“It was bribery. It was corruption on the most extraordinary level. And those that know me when this offer was made said they’d never heard me shout so loudly. I was that angry at total corruption.”
During his interview with GB News, Johnson also suggested he was best-placed to thwart the threat from Farage.
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“We would have gone on, I’m sure, to win the election,” the former Prime Minister said.
“Don’t forget Reform, which did so much damage to the Conservatives in July 2024, were on zero per cent.”
He added: “We were only a handful of points behind in the polls, nothing like the huge gaps that opened up.”
Reform UK received 14.4 per cent of the vote on July 4, returning five MPs and costing the Conservative Party dozens of additional seats.
Johnson trailed Labour by just six-points in the Redfield & Wilton’s last opinion poll conducted ahead of his resignation announcement, with Tory support plummeting under both Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak.
Reform UK’s support in the same poll stood at just five per cent, level with the Green Party and much lower than the 11 per cent obtained by the Liberal Democrats.
Discussing how he would have tackled Reform UK, Johnson claimed: “I think we would have continued to deliver on the levelling-up agenda.
“We ended up in 2024 basically, alternately, machine-gunning both halves of our coalition.”
Boris Johnson
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Johnson’s 2019 coalition drastically fragmented by the time Britons went to the polls on July 4.
Around 25 per cent of 2019 Tory supporters voted for Reform UK, with 12 per cent backing Labour and seven per cent siding with the Liberal Democrats.
The same Redfield & Wilton survey from the summer of 2022 revealed 12 per cent were supporting Labour but just four per cent were backing Reform UK and three per cent were siding with the Liberal Democrats.
However, the Tories were handed a series of electoral blows, with by-election defeats in Wakefield and Tiverton & Honiton resulting in disaffection from Tory MPs towards the then-Prime Minister.
