Farage: Brexit Party Won’t Challenge Any Tory Seats

The Guardian reports:

Nigel Farage has said the Brexit party will not field any candidates against the Conservatives in the 317 seats they won at the last general election, after Boris Johnson committed to leaving the EU by 2020 and pursuing a Canada-style trade deal.

Farage said his party’s climbdown came after months of trying to create a leave alliance with the Tories, but he felt it was time to put the country before his party and make a “unilateral” move.

He will announce on Friday in which seats the Brexit party is standing. Speculation continues over where the party will stand but it is not expected to run in Northern Ireland or parts of Scotland.

The Daily Beast reports:

While Farage’s rollback is welcome news for Johnson, it’s far from a guarantee that he will win the majority of seats he will need to be able to force through his vision of Brexit.

By standing in every seat the Conservatives didn’t win in 2017’s election under Theresa May, Farage will still make it very difficult for Johnson to make any gains. May’s 317 seats fell short of a majority, forcing her to make a deal with the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party and severely undermining her power.

However, Farage appears to believe that his announcement will help keep the pro-Brexit vote from splitting in Conservative seats and prevent them from being lost to pro-EU parties such as the Liberal Democrats, which has advocated for a second EU referendum or unilaterally cancelling the Brexit process with the agreement of European leaders.