Daily Mail, Wednesday, August 28, 2019 Page
QQQfers Boris election
he backs No Deal
Nigel’s new
operation is
slicker than a
can of Castrol
B
AYING crowds, blaring
music, glossily produced
videos and a catchy new
US-style slogan. Yup,
Nigel Farage’s Brexit
Party are back after a quiet
summer and they’re cranking
up the volume.
Boris Johnson has stolen the
party’s togs since their triumph in
the EU elections in May.
With No Deal back on the table, the
new PM has got Eurosceptic Tories
buzzing again. The Brexit Party
balloon has been popped. The Farage
fox wounded.
Their response was to hold a boister-
ous rally yesterday for 500 candidates
it claims are now vetted and ready to
fight a general election in autumn.
Our setting was the Emmanuel
Centre, a conference venue in
Westminster which doubles as an
Evangelist church. Fitting. Such was
the care invested into the event’s
choreography, proceedings took on a
particularly televangelist flavour.
Say what you like about Farage’s
new operation, it’s slicker than a can
of Castrol GTX.
‘We’re ready.’ That was the message
for the day. The audience vigorously
shouted it all morning. Spartan
warriors on the eve of battle at Ther-
mopylae were possibly less pumped.
Perma-tanned party chairman
Richard Tice was first to appear, his
arrival heralded by the sort of pulsat-
ing drumbeats echoing around
Notting Hill Carnival all weekend.
He was in self-congratulatory mode.
In the mere 19 weeks since its
inception, Tice reflected, the party
had changed politics for good.
‘19 weeks!’ he grinned. ‘I gotta tell
you, it feels longer.’
They had helped get rid of the
worst prime minister the country
had ever seen, he said. It had also
seen off the least talented Cabinet in
history. And now the Tories were
copying all their policies.
Such was the braggadocio that for a
brief moment I thought he might try
to claim a hand in Ben Stokes’s
batting heroics in Leeds on Sunday.
‘Are you ready?’ he yelled. ‘We’re
ready!’ the audience chorused.
And then it was time for the main
event. Nigel Farage was tanned and
trim. Down the auditorium stairs he
bounded with the confidence of a
Saturday night television host.
After the Boris surge, he’s in desper-
ate need of a narrative. As such, the
great leader was willing to talk turkey.
He said he would consider a non-
aggression pact with the Conserva-
tives should Boris be willing to hold
his nerve and opt for a No Deal Brexit.
‘A Johnson Government and TheBrexit Party working in tandem
would be unstoppable,’ he enthused.
However, he warned any attempt to
try to usher through Theresa May’s
deal with a just few concessions on
the dreaded Irish backstop would
result in Brexit Party candidates
standing in every seat of the country.
‘We could be your best friends or your
worst enemy,’ Nige muttered darkly.
‘Are you ready? Are you sure
you’re ready?’W
E were served up a tart note
with which to finish. Next
on stage was Ann Widde-
combe. Further whoops and
cheers. Widdy wore raspberry ripple
red and white. The hair still resem-
bles an abandoned chaffinch’s nest
and the gnashers could use a trip to
the bleachers but the old trout’s
energy remains as springy as ever.
Swinging her arms and stamping
her feet on stage, her voice growing
ever shriller, she could have been an
out-of-time chorus member in aschool production of Pirates Of
Penzance. ‘Are weeeeee readdddy?’,
she squawked.
Behind her, Chairman Tice gazed
on, his lightly lacquered face a
mixture of fear and wonderment.
Shades of Victor Frankenstein
admiring his monster.
Later in the afternoon, a motley
collection of opposition leaders
invited us to a room in Church House
to announce their plans to block the
Prime Minister proroguing Parlia-
ment in order to force through a No
Deal. Atmosphere: Portentous.
We heard from shadow chancellor
John McDonnell; SNP leader Ian
Blackford; Jo Swinson of the Liberal
Democrats; Plaid Cymru’s Liz Saville
Roberts; Caroline Lucas from the
Greens; and Anna Soubry from
Hopey Changey or whatever they’re
calling themselves these days.
After listening to these glumdrops
spouting the usual ‘cliff edge’
platitudes, Farage was proved
undoubtedly right.
A pact between him and Boris
would be unstoppable.HENRY DEEDES
...on the Brexit Party’s big rally
can you trust the Conserva-
tive Party? With or without
the backstop, this is still
the worst deal in history.’
Mr Farage also attacked
Labour, saying it had
become the party of Hamp-
stead rather than Hud-
dersfield and had ‘lost all
touch with its working
class roots’.
Brexit Party MEP AnnWiddecombe, who quit the
Tories in April, gave a
speech attacking Remainer
MPs. She threatened to
unseat Tories across the
country who had ‘ratted on
their manifestos’.
The Brexit Party would
‘restore proper democracy’
and ‘make sure that Parlia-
ment knows it’s place, and
it’s place is delivering whatthe British people want’,
the 71-year-old said.
If there was a general
election and Mr Johnson
promised a ‘clean break
Brexit’ then all members of
the Tory party should be
required to declare to their
constituents that they will
vote for that No Deal
Brexit, she said
‘I don’t want to fight witha divided army... behind
the general.
‘You’re the ones on the
ground who are going to
make sure that those who
have... ratted on their
manifestos... will never see
the inside of Westminster
ever again’, she said.
‘If they won’t make sure
Britain leaves, we will make
sure that we leave.’Political
ambitions:
Jay Aston
yesterdayPicture: STEVE FINN