Brexiteer Tories hold talks with Farage over election pact with Brexit Party to deliver ‘clean break’ from EU
BREXITEER Tories have been holding talks with Nigel Farage over a possible election pact to be able to deliver a "clean break" from the EU, it has been claimed.
Boris Johnson's demands for a snap general election were this week scuppered after being blocked by Jeremy Corbyn and Remainers.
And it has now been reported "very tentative" discussions have taken place between members of the European Research Group, a hardline group of Tory MPs in favour of a No Deal Brexit, and the Brexit Party amid fears the Tories would struggle to win a majority in the event of an election to deliver Brexit.
: "There have been conversations between the Brexit Party and the ERG. Not just with Farage but also at a local level.
"The feeling is that it would be mad to let the Remainers do an alliance but not the Brexiteeers."
Senior Tory Brexiteer Steve Baker had warned earlier this week that the PM needed to make a deal with Farage's Brexit Party if he wanted any chance of winning a majority.
The chairman of the European Research Group added "'some sort of accommodation" should be struck with the Brexit Party leader.
And Farage himself said he was "ready to back" the PM for a clean-break Brexit.
In an advertisement in the Telegraph, he said: "If Mr Johnson commits to a clean-break Brexit we are ready to back him, by fighting our electoral battles selectively and targeting the Remainer establishment.
"Together we would be unstoppable, rout the Remainers and deliver a large Brexit majority in Parliament. If Boris seizes this opportunity he can be a hero."
UNLOCK THE BLOCK
Boris Johnson this week claimed he would rather be "dead in a ditch" than to further delay Brexit.
And while the Prime Minister was dealt a major blow yesterday when the Lords approved legislation blocking a No Deal Brexit, he was encouraged to become a "martyr" and break the law to get Britain out of the EU.
The legislation orders Mr Johnson to ask for a Brexit delay until January 31 next year if no agreement has been reached by October 19 and MPs do not back No Deal.
But BoJo wrote to Tory members saying he would not carry out Parliament's instructions to ask for another extension - saying he was only bound "in theory" by the law passed on Friday.
This means he could either defy the law or, in what would be an extraordinary move, resign as Prime Minister.
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The vote for a general election was lost after Corbyn ordered his MPs to abstain in the knowledge this would prevent Boris getting the two thirds majority he needed.
That prompted a furious Mr Johnson brand Corbyn "chicken" saying he was “the first leader of the opposition in the democratic history of our country to refuse the invitation of an election”.
Labour’s mass abstention came despite Mr Corbyn and other senior figures in his party having called for a general election as soon as possible more than 15 times so far — in this year alone.
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