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General election: Farage's plan to stand aside in Tory seats amounts to 'Trump alliance', says Corbyn - live news
General election: Farage's plan to stand aside in Tory seats amounts to 'Trump alliance', says Corbyn - live news
(32 minutes later)
Farage says he was worried Brexit party could let the Lib Dems take seats from Tories. Follow all the developments now
Farage says he was worried Brexit party could let the Lib Dems take seats from Tories. Follow all the developments now
Boris Johnson claimed that he has given up alcohol “until Brexit is done” when he posed for a photograph at a pub in a Wolverhampton. He added “I’ll wet my whistle” before taking a sip from a pint.
The SNP, like the Lib Dems, are also saying the Conservative party has now become the Brexit party. (See 3.11pm.) These are from Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister.
The Plaid Cymru leader Adam Price claims Nigel Farage’s decision to stand down Brexit party candidates in Tory-held seats implies the government is planning a no-deal Brexit. In a statement he said:
From my colleague Martin Belam
The Tories have got a candidate in Hartlepool, my colleague Josh Halliday reports, correcting an earlier claim that didn’t have one. (See 2.34pm.)
Ireland has expressed concern over a Conservative party pledge to change the law to protect former soldiers in Northern Ireland from possible prosecution over deaths during the Troubles.
The Tories have promised to end what they describe as “unfair trials” of soldiers accused of unlawful killings in Northern Ireland by amending the Human Rights Act to exclude any case dating from before the act came into force in 2000.
Ireland’s deputy prime minister, Simon Coveney, posted a tweet this morning saying this was “very concerning”.
Iain Duncan Smith, the former Conservative leader and prominent Brexiter, told the BBC’s World at One that Nigel Farage’s announcement was a “good thing”. He said:
Jeremy Corbyn has described the Brexit party’s decision to stand down in Tory seats as a “Trump alliance”. He points out that this is exactly the sort of Boris Johnson/Nigel Farage pact that Donald Trump seemed to be proposing in his recent LBC interview with Farage.
Jeremy Corbyn has described the Brexit party’s decision to stand down in Tory seats as a “Trump alliance”. He points out that this is exactly the sort of Boris Johnson/Nigel Farage pact that Donald Trump seemed to be proposing in his recent LBC interview with Farage.
Last night Jeremy Corbyn posted this on Twitter in response to the news that Evo Morales has announced he will resign as president of Bolivia after the military called for him to step down and the police withdrew their support following weeks of unrest over disputed election results.
Last night Jeremy Corbyn posted this on Twitter in response to the news that Evo Morales has announced he will resign as president of Bolivia after the military called for him to step down and the police withdrew their support following weeks of unrest over disputed election results.
Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, has accused Corbyn of putting “Marxist solidarity” ahead of his commitment to democracy.
Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, has accused Corbyn of putting “Marxist solidarity” ahead of his commitment to democracy.
Jo Swinson, the Lib Dem leader, has said that Nigel Farage’s decision not to stand Brexit party candidates in Tory seats means the Conservatives are now aligned with the Brexit party.
Jo Swinson, the Lib Dem leader, has said that Nigel Farage’s decision not to stand Brexit party candidates in Tory seats means the Conservatives are now aligned with the Brexit party.
(In truth, the Lib Dems have been making this sort of claim for some time.)
(In truth, the Lib Dems have been making this sort of claim for some time.)
And the Lib Dem candidate Sam Gyimah has put it like this on Twitter.
And the Lib Dem candidate Sam Gyimah has put it like this on Twitter.
This is a version of the Alex Salmond/Ed Miliband poster that the Conservatives used in the 2015 election campaign. It is a punchy image, although it misses the point Farage is the person today who has capitulated to Boris Johnson.
This is a version of the Alex Salmond/Ed Miliband poster that the Conservatives used in the 2015 election campaign. It is a punchy image, although it misses the point Farage is the person today who has capitulated to Boris Johnson.
Paul Sweeney, the Labour candidate in Glasgow North and a shadow Scotland Office minister, has said that no UK government could refuse another Scottish independence referendum if there is a pro-independence majority in the Scottish parliament. But, speaking in George Square in Glasgow after a ceremony marking the Armistice in 1918, Sweeney said independence was not an issue for this election. He said:
The key question for the Brexit party and the Conservatives is what is going to happen in the Labour-held leave-voting seats where they both fancy their chances. Will there be some sort of unofficial non-aggression pact, where they divide up targets between them? We don’t know but my colleague Josh Halliday has just posted these about the contest in Hartlepool, the Labour-held seat where Richard Tice, the Brexit party chairman, is standing.
YouGov, the polling company, has sent out an analysis of the Nigel Farage decision saying it is unlikely to be a “game-changing moment” for the election. This is from its political research manager, Chris Curtis.
These are from my colleague Rajeev Syal, who has been in the high court this morning.
I’ve been back on the Lib Dems’ electric-powered battle bus, and for once the party was not talking about Brexit.
Sam Gyimah, the recently-defected former Tory MP who now speaks on business matters for the Lib Dems, was taken all the way from Westminster to Marylebone Road – slightly over two miles – to talk about the slightly awkwardly-named “skills wallet” plan, a commitment to give all adults £10,000 to spend on training over various points in their lives.
He visited a company that provides tech-based apprenticeships, called WhiteHat. It was co-founded by none other than Euan Blair, eldest son of the former Labour PM, but he is currently on paternity leave and so missed any awkward questions about who he might vote for.
Gyimah, a former universities minister, happily chatted to staff and apprentices about all sorts of subjects, not least tuition fees, something of a toxic subject for the Lib Dems after they broke their 2010 manifesto pledge to support higher fees in the coalition government.
Gyimah would not say what Lib Dem policy would be ahead of the party’s manifesto, but spoke strongly against ending fees, saying this ends up rationing access to higher education.
This brought no murmurs of dissent from the apprentices. Perhaps they were being polite, or having decided against university it was less of an issue. But it could also be that as younger voters, the events of 2010 feel like ancient history. The Lib Dems will certainly hope so.
Gyimah has abandoned the East Surrey seat he represented since 2010 to try his luck in Kensington. Labour’s Emma Dent Coad took this from the Conservatives in 2017, with the Lib Dems a distant third.
Speaking to me on the bus before the visit, Gyimah said he hoped to do well in a strongly pro-remain area, and to capitalise on Dent Coad’s occasionally divisive reputation:
Will he do it? Some polls have Gyimah currently second behind the Tories, but given the volatility of the election it is not impossible he could win.
Wayne Bayley, who until lunchtime was the Brexit party candidate in Crawley, a Conservative-held seat, isn’t very happy about the decision taken by his leader.
The Scottish Greens have decided not to stand candidates in two hyper-marginal seats being defended by the Scottish National party, boosting the SNP’s hopes of holding them.
The pro-independence Scottish Green party (SGP) said its local branches had opted not to contest North East Fife, won by the SNP by just two votes in 2017, and Perth & North Perthshire, held by the SNP with a 21-vote margin in 2017, for “various reasons”.
The SNP is under intense pressure in both seats, with the Liberal Democrats determined to regain North East Fife from Stephen Gethins, the SNP’s international affairs spokesman, and the Scottish Tories investing heavily in defeating Pete Wishart in Perth and North Perthshire.
The Tories have repeatedly tried to unseat Wishart, who was furious when he found the SGP had a candidate to stand against him. He accused them of helping the Tories by diluting the pro-independence vote, leading to angry attacks on Green politicians on social media.
On Sunday, hours after the local SGP branch decided not to contest his seat, Wishart tweeted a recommendation by one tactical voting website, Progressive Alliance, to back him.
The SGP fielded a candidate in the 2015 election, taking 1,146 votes, and there is little love lost between the two parties. The Scottish Greens are highly critical of Nicola Sturgeon’s defence of North Sea oil and say her record on the climate crisis is much weaker than her rhetoric.
An SGP denied this was an organised deal to protect pro-independence seats: they are likely to attack Wishart’s record of voting for the oil industry. A SGP spokesman said:
The Scottish Greens won 1,387 votes in North East Fife in 2015, when Gethins first took the seat from the Liberal Democrats when Menzies Campbell, the former Lib Dem leader retired after nearly 30 years as the local MP. Despite backing out in that seat, they are contesting another SNP marginal nearby, of Dunfermline and West Fife. They took 1,196 votes there in 2015; the SNP held the seat by 844 votes in 2017.
In an interview on the World at One Prof Sir John Curtice, the BBC’s lead elections expert and the person who oversees the national exit poll, said that although Nigel Farage’s decision would not make a big difference, it would probably wipe out the advantage that the Lib Dems gained from the remain alliance pact announced last week.
The Brexit party is standing down in seats the Tories held in 2017. But, given the state of the opinion polls (which generally show the Tories ahead of Labour by around 10 points - a much larger margin than on election night in 2017), the Conservatives would currently expect to hold most of these anyway, Curtice said.
He said there were two exceptions to this.
In Scotland the Tories are at risk of losing seats to the SNP, he said. But he said the Brexit party was weak in Scotland, so “this is probably not going to help the Tories very much in that,” Curtice said.
The main impact would be in seats where the Tories faced a strong Lib Dem challenge, Curtice said.
Curtice said in Labour-held seats, where the Brexit party still intends to stand, the Farage decision would not make much difference. But he included this qualifier:
Summing up the overall impact, Curtice said:
Nigel Farage’s announcement has lifted sterling on the foreign exchange markets.
The pound has hit a six-month high against the euro, at €1.168.
Sterling is also up a cent against the US dollar at $1.288.
City traders are calculating that a hung parliament is now less likely - although the Brexit party will still be competing in Conservative target seats.
