The
Brexit Party has fallen short of standing the 300 general
election candidates that
Nigel Farage promised - boosting Conservative hopes of winning a majority in the December poll.
The party looks set to have candidates in 274 constituencies, including dozens in battlegrounds between the Conservatives and Labour, but the total is some way short of a full slate of 650.
On Monday, Farage announced the party would not contest any of the 317 seats won by the ruling Conservative Party at the last election. On Friday, it appeared the party would not stand in a further 16 seats which are held by
Labour - giving
Boris Johnson hope of winning a handful of crucial marginals.Brexit Party field 274 candidates - 26 fewer than Nigel Farage said he would. And instead of contesting every Labour seat, 16 Labour seats have no @brexitparty_uk candidate. So 42 seats in
England, Wales and
Scotland with no BXP candidate, of which 16 are Labour. #GE2019— Gordon Rayner (@gordonrayner) November 15, 2019The most significant could be in Canterbury, where Labour’s Rosie Duffield slim 187-vote majority looks vulnerable to the Tories now the Brexit vote can unite around the Conservative candidate.
The Brexit Party’s absence also hands the Tories the advantage in parts of Scotland with the Tories going face-to-face with the SNP. In the central Scottish seat of Lanark and Hamilton East, the Tories only lost by just 266 votes in a three-way marginal in 2017.
A breakdown of who is standing and where has been compiled by Democracy Club, a pro-democracy group, and reported by the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph.
Farage had maintained the party would put forward 300 candidates and said on Thursday: “I said on Monday we would be fighting 300 seats and that’s exactly what we are going to do.”
But he has faced a backlash from within his own party over fears splitting the vote favours Labour, with Brexit Party MEP Rupert Lowe revealing he would not contest in Dudley North.
Then-Labour MP Ian Austin triumphed over the Tories in Dudley North in the 2017 general election by a margin of just 22 votes.
He tweeted that he was “putting country before party” as it is “highly conceivable” his candidacy could allow “Corbyn’s Momentum candidate” to win. He added: “They are simply not fit to govern.”
Farage on Friday offered an apology to his supporters, accusing Lowe of “disgusting” behaviour in pulling out as a candidate at the 11th hour.
“It was disgusting behaviour,” Farage said. “What he probably hasn’t told you is that he met a senior official from Number 10 in the middle of last week, somebody quite close to Boris, and this was obviously stitched up.
“If he made a decision, he went and changed course, he’s entitled to. But to let everybody else down at the eleventh hour, dreadful behaviour – shocking.”Related... Brexit Party MEP Urges His Own Candidates To Stand Down For Tories Should Remainers Unite To Defeat Nigel Farage And Boris Johnson’s ‘Leave Alliance’? We Ask Chuka Umunna. Nigel Farage Doesn't Need To Stand Because Under Boris Johnson The Conservatives Are The Brexit Party