UK Edition
Drop support for Theresa May's Brexit deal if you want a general election pact, Nigel Farage tells Boris Johnson
Nigel Farage has said that he would find it difficult to work with a future Tory leader who has backed Theresa May’s Brexit deal, ruling out a tie-up with Boris Johnson or Dominic Raab.
Tory MPs are openly speculating on whether a future Conservative leader would come to a deal over contesting seats if a general election is called to deal with the Brexit impasse in Parliament.
On Saturday Conservative MP Crispin Blunt said it was an “unavoidable necessity” that the Tories would have to form “some kind of electoral pact and common platform” with the Brexit Party.
However, on a campaign tour of Essex, asked if the next leader would have to drop support for the Withdrawal Agreement to win the Brexit Party’s backing Mr Farage told The Daily Telegraph: “Of course. Absolutely.
“If a new Conservative leader said ‘we are leaving on WTO terms on Hallowe’en Day’ then that would be a great step in the right direction but would they actually stick to it? How could we trust them? That is the problem.
“Everyone keeps shouting Boris’s name at me - Boris voted for the Withdrawal Agreement despite everything he had written in your newspaper. I have got a real problem with that. A real problem with that. So we will see.”
He added: “Boris talked about vassalage, talked about slave state, talked about May's treaty in more colourful language than I would use and then votes for it. So what does he really believe?"
The comments will put pressure on Brexiteer Tory MPs like Mr Johnson and Dominic Raab who want to succeed Theresa May as leader to withdraw support for the Withdrawal Agreement Bill when it is put to MPs in the week commencing June 3.
Mr Farage said his party was now attracting donations of £100,000 a day from generous benefactors, and has already ordered his party to select 650 candidates to fight a general election which many suspect will be called later this year.
Extra staff have been hired to process the donations, and check the donors' details against the electoral register, to ensure they are permissible in electoral law.
Around 2,000 people a day are paying £25 each to join. Total supporter numbers are now nearly 110,000, just short of the Tories' 124,000 membership tally.
The Brexit Party formally launched on April 12 and can now lay claim to be the fastest growing political party in modern British history.
Mr Farage said: "There is a new kind of supporter coming forward. We are very grateful that people are coming on board at a different level.
“People who give real money will only help organisations that help themselves."
Meanwhile Tory grandee Lord Heseltine said he would not be supporting the Conservatives in the election on Thursday, and will instead vote Liberal Democrat.
The former deputy prime minister and lifelong pro-European said the party had become "infected by the virus of extremism" and he could not endorse its support for leaving the EU.
On Sunday Conservative MPs said Lord Heseltine should be stripped of the party whip.
David Jones, a former Brexit minister, said: “Lord Heseltine says he will retain the Conservative Whip in the Lords, but the Party must make clear immediately whether it will allow him to do so, given his public endorsement of the Lib Dems.
“I have no doubt that any pro-Brexit Tory who publicly endorsed the Brexit Party would have the Whip withdrawn in double-quick time.”
In an article for The Sunday Times, Lord Heseltine had said: "The reason for my experiment with the Lib Dems is, of course, the Government's position on Brexit.
"I cannot, with a clear conscience, vote for my party when it is myopically focused on forcing through the biggest act of economic self-harm ever undertaken by a democratic government.
"I have no intention of being forced out - or resigning from - a party that has been such an important part of my life."
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