Nigel Farage has defended his decision to pull UKIP candidates from running for seats won by the Conservatives in the 2019 general election.
The founder of the party and former Brexit party MEP admitted that he “hasn’t had a thank you” from Boris Johnson for standing aside his candidates.
The former Prime Minister, Johnson, won the 2019 general election with a 317 seat majority, on a pledge to “get Brexit done”.
Nigel Farage, who also campaigned for Brexit with his party, announced the Brexit Party would instead target seats “held by the Labour party”.
Nigel Farage defended his decision to pull UKIP candidates from the general election
GB News
Nigel said at the time: “The Brexit party will not contest the 317 seats the Conservatives won at the last election.
“We will concentrate our total effort into all the seats that are held by the Labour party, who have completely broken their manifesto pledge in 2017 to respect the result of the referendum, and we will also take on the rest of the Remainer parties.”
Recalling the decision, Nigel told GB News doesn’t regret the decision, but instead regrets “how Brexit has been implemented”.
When asked by host Pip Tomson if he has contacted Boris Johnson recently, Nigel revealed that the pair spoke “two or three months ago”.
Nigel explained: “I have not as yet had a Christmas card from him, or even a thank you for standing for standing aside 320 candidates in 2019.
“I regret Brexit’s not been implemented the way that I wanted it to be. But if I had stood against him and gone round the country and said the deal is rubbish, the danger was the Lib Dems would win 50, 60, 70 seats, we’d finish up with them propping up a Jeremy Corbyn government, and a second referendum.
“Can you imagine if Corbyn had been Prime Minister? Given the events in Israel and Gaza over the course of the last couple of months? It could have been absolutely dreadful.
“I made what I thought was the right decision at the time. I still believe it was. I just wish it had worked out rather better.”
Nigel Farage claimed Jeremy Corbyn would have been ‘dreadful’ as Prime Minister
PA
Pip then asked Nigel about his thoughts on another former Labour leader’s latest move, as Tony Blair has paid visit to Israel, for talks with leader Benjamin Netanyahu.
Nigel criticised the visit, fuming: “I don’t see what credibility Tony Blair has in the Far East at all. We know that the Iraq war was pushed through Parliament by Blair, sold to the country on something that we subsequently learned to be a lie.
“And we don’t mind our Prime Ministers risking the lives of British soldiers. We don’t mind our Prime Minister going to war, but tell us the truth, don’t lie to us.
“Apart from the fact that Tony Blair knows Netanyahu, I cannot see what he adds to this at all. But he’s known him a long time. So that could be that.”
