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Nigel Farage had grand plans for his Brexit Party – but they will probably be dashed

Editorial: Support for the party has been slowly falling away in the polls as we approach the election, and with it goes Mr Farage’s political clout

Monday 11 November 2019 19:38 GMT
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General Election: Nigel Farage says Brexit Party will not contest seats won by Conservatives in 2017

For most of the past decade or so, it has been singularly unwise to write off Nigel Farage. His political obituary has been published, prematurely, many times. He is still standing; he is still in the election, albeit in scaled-down form; people will still vote for him.

But the electoral support is nothing like the strength he needs to make his grandiloquent threats frighten anyone. Though he might have thought he was playing a clever tactical game, he was pushing his luck when he demanded that Boris Johnson tear up the withdrawal agreement. It was never going to happen, mainly because Downing Street regards association with Mr Farage as toxic to the Conservative brand.

Just as Mr Farage’s attempt to control the main 2016 Leave campaign was rebuffed by Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, his pleas for a “non-aggression pact” with the Conservatives in the upcoming election have been met with the same mix of scepticism and disdain. Mr Farage’s image among the kinds of voters the Tories need to attract is mostly poor. He is a net liability. They know it and, perhaps, he, deep down, recognises that he is a pungent dish so far as well-off voters in Remain-leaning areas are concerned.

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