The move comes days after Boris Johnson ruled out working with Farage's party
Three local Conservatives have defied Boris Johnson to enter a pro-Brexit coalition with the Brexit Party.
Just days after Boris Johnson publicly ruled out an election pact with Nigel Farage’s party, three Tory councillors in Hartlepool have announced that they will work alongside the party to challenge Labour for control of the local government
The move is the first time Conservatives have broken ranks since Johnson ruled out a pact with the Brexit Party and came a day after nine Hartlepool councillors from different parties announced that they would be defecting to the Brexit Party.
One of the Conservative councillors Mike Young said that he was “disappointed” that a way forward for Brexit has not emerged.
Young added: “As a coalition, we want to stand by the people of the town, who voted almost 70% to leave the EU, and we will be standing firm and sending a message to parliament and the EU.”
Brexit Party chairman Richard Tice said: “It is shocking that Hartlepool’s sitting Labour MP is defying local wishes and fighting to block Brexit […] The British people are tired of their games.”
The pro-Brexit alliance is in direct defiance of the Conservative Party leadership, after a Downing Street spokesman said on Wednesday afternoon: “The PM will not be doing a deal with Nigel Farage.”
A senior Conservative is reported to have added that “Neither Nigel Farage or (political donor) Arron Banks are fit and proper persons and they should never be allowed anywhere near government.”
The refusal to enter into a pact with Farage’s new party will be controversial to some in the Conservative Party.
The new chairman of the Eurosceptic European Research Group Steve Baker MP has urged Boris Johnson to do a deal with the Brexit Party if there is an election before Britain leaves the EU.
Joe Evans is a journalist and editor. He is on Twitter: @joeevanswrites
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4 Responses to “Defiance in the Tory ranks as three Conservatives enter pact with Brexit Party”
Julia Gibb
I cannot understand this Brexit cult. What has happened to this country?
It should be studied as a scientific anomaly. Why is the effect so strong in England?
Farage is a Right Wing idiot and is worshipped like an Americal Evangelist.
Dave Roberts
What has happened Julia is that a majority of people in this country when given the chance three years ago voted to leave the EU. What had started out as the European Economic Community, a good idea in my opinion, had morphed gradually and almost unnoticed into a supra national state run by unelected commissioners who could override national governments and the will of the people. I voted remain but having seen the response of the majority of my fellow remainers I would now vote leave.
I am disgusted by the depictions of leavers as closet or actual fascists when the majority are simply ordinary people fed up with being patronised and lectured to by metropolitan elites who think they know what is best for everybody. What should have happened was that there were a number of options in the referendum instead of a simple in or out. I would favour a custom union with political decisions being taken by national legislatures but we were given a simple in or out.
Alasdair Macdonald
Although I voted Remain and, given the chance, would vote again for Remain, I think that many who voted Leave had sincere and non-xenophobic reasons for doing so.
I think, as is hinted at in the final paragraph of Dave Roberts’ response, that the increasing disempowerment many people in England feel was a substantial factor in their decision. The has been a growing ‘democratic deficit’ in England since the 1960s. Local government has been substantially neutered and has few powers. Increasing powers have been gathered into Westminster, which acts to support the globalised financial services (i.e. money-laundering) in the City and the South East. pubic investment in London and the South East dwarfs the level of investment elsewhere in England. Industry was wilfully destroyed and former financial regional powerhouses like Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham were weakened along with the destruction of the industries in their heartlands.
Scotland and Wales have some measure – not enough – over their own affairs and, for a complex mix of reasons, Northern Ireland has, too. The media and the Tories have painted these countries as ‘subsidy junkies’ kept afloat by the generosity of England. This is classic divide-and-rule and, indeed, xenophobic tactics to turn the disempowered against each other. The biggest subsidy junkies are in the City – ‘austerity’ is about transferring the wealth and resources of the majority of us to the small financial and landowning interests who control much of Westminster and Whitehall. The Civil Service, while it has very many decent conscientious people in it, is led by those acting on behalf of the financial interests.
The union has to be ended and England has to find its own way out of this morass. The majority of people who live in England are honest and humane people to the same extent as most people elsewhere. They need to demand more control and fairer shares..
Juliet Tamplin
I voted to leave not for a deal.
We need to make our own rule, which a Customs Union ,does not let us do.
If we leave being part of the Customs Union, the EU can continue to make two thirds of our laws, and we will be even worse off, as we will not have any representation in law making.
We would leave in name only, be tide to the EU for the foreseeable future, and will have given up our Country and our freedom.
We need to be able to make our on trade tariffs, on WTO terms until trade deals can be sorted.
We need to Control, who comes into our Country, on may be a point system similar to Australia.
We need to regain control of our fishing Waters.
The EU will sort a trade deal, once we have left, its not in their interest, not to do so.Its in their interest, a lot of their car manufacturing, would close,if they did not do a trade deal with the UK, they have far more to loose.
I do not wish to see a EU Army , but a sensible free trade agreements, and a friendly respect of of the EU.That’s the way we are heading at the moments.
And I want to retain our currency.