Brexit party will not contest 317 Tory-won seats, Farage says

Party leader announces election climbdown in effort to avoid splitting leave vote

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.

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Donald Trump urges Farage and Johnson to form Brexit pact – video

Donald Trump says he would like to see his 'friends' Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage form a pact to secure a pro-Brexit parliamentary majority in the general election. Farage announced on Sunday he would not stand in next month's election, choosing instead to campaign nationally against Johnson's Brexit deal. His Brexit party will stand in every seat on 12 December, which has been seen as a potential setback to Johnson.

The president said Johnson was 'the right man for the time ... He's tough, he's smart and I think he's going to do something.'

'What I'd like to see is for Nigel and Boris to come together,' he added. 'I think that's a possibility.'

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Boris Johnson faces threat of Brexit party battle in every seat

PM rejects Nigel Farage’s offer of electoral pact, saying it could allow Jeremy Corbyn into No 10

Boris Johnson faces the threat of battling against the Brexit party for leave votes in every seat across Britain, after Nigel Farage gave the prime minister a two-week deadline to drop his Brexit deal.

After a rocky 48 hours, which saw Johnson booed during a hospital visit and urged by Donald Trump to join forces with Farage, the Brexit party leader urged him to strike a “leave alliance”.

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‘Corbyn would be so bad for your country,’ Trump tells Farage – video

The US president has taken the unusual step of using an interview with Nigel Farage on LBC radio to intervene in the UK general election. Trump said Jeremy Corbyn would be ‘so bad’ for the UK and that Farage and Boris Johnson would be an ‘unstoppable force’ if they were to work together

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Trump says Johnson and Farage could form ‘unstoppable force’

US president claims on LBC Radio that Jeremy Corbyn would take UK to ‘such bad places’

Donald Trump has intervened in the UK’s nascent election campaign, calling on Boris Johnson to team up with Nigel Farage to form an “unstoppable force” and claiming Jeremy Corbyn would be “so bad for your country”.

Speaking to Farage on LBC Radio, the US president also said Johnson’s Brexit deal could prevent the UK from agreeing a trade deal with the US.

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Brexit party MEPs are EU’s biggest earners in second jobs, study finds

Five of party’s members make top 10, as researchers raise conflict of interest concerns

Brexit party members earn more from second jobs than any other group in the European parliament, according to transparency campaigners who are warning about potential conflicts of interest.

An annual study by Transparency International showed that Nigel Farage is no longer the best-paid British MEP by second job. Now in seventh place among the 227 MEPs with outside earnings, Farage earns about €360,000 (£319,000) a year from his media company, Thorn in the Side.

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Brexit: Jess Phillips accuses Boris Johnson of using language ‘designed to inflate hatred’ – live news

Prime minister chooses not to attend Commons to answer urgent question on language he used last night

Here is more from what Boris Johnson told Conservative backbenchers at his private meeting with the 1922 Committee.

From my colleague Rowena Mason

Boris Johnson told MPs at 1922 that he would carry on using the phrase surrender bill but did say MPs must all be careful about using language of violence

Boris Johnson left the 1922 to shouts of “Will you apologise?” from journalists - he scuttled off with no comment

In 1922 meeting there was a sombre moment when @PennyMordaunt told MPs she was with @BorisJohnson in 2016 when news came through that Jo Cox had died. She said 'Boris's reaction was so human'.
"It was a moving moment in there," one Tory MP says.

Striking how few Tory MPs leaving 22 Committee with Boris after around 30 mins stopped to chat to reporters compared with the dying days of Theresa May’s premiership. Not many smiling faces either tbh.

Boris Johnson was described as ‘ebullient’ and ‘full of bonhomie’ by two walking out, others looked pretty sullen.

Jeremy Corbyn is speaking on this topic for Labour.

He says it is “extremely disappointing” that Boris Johnson is not here himself to answer the UQ.

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Boris Johnson refuses to rule out suspending parliament again

PM says adverse supreme court ruling would not stop him proroguing parliament again

Boris Johnson has refused to rule out suspending parliament again if the supreme court rules on Tuesday that he abused his powers as prime minister in doing so earlier this month.

The British prime minister, who is in New York for a UN summit, also indicated he would not feel obliged to resign if the justices rule he misled the Queen in his reasons for suspending parliament.

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Brexit: Supreme court resumes hearing to decide if Boris Johnson’s suspension of parliament lawful – live news

Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen, including day two of the supreme court hearing to decide if Boris Johnson’s five-week suspension of parliament was lawful

Eadie says even Lord Pannick, who represents Gina Miller, accepts that it can be legitimate for the executive to obtain political advantage from prorogation.

If this is the case, how can a court decide what level of political advantage is acceptable, and what level is not.

Prorogation has been used by the government to gain a legislative and so political advantage. One of the most notable examples of that was its use to facilitate the speedy passage of what became the Parliament Act 1949. Under section 2 of the Parliament Act 1911 a non-money bill could only be enacted without the consent of the House of Lords if it was passed in three successive sessions by the House of Commons. In order to procure the speedy enactment of the 1949 Act the government arranged for a session of minimal length in 1948. Parliament was prorogued on 13 September 1948 to the following day. Following the passage of the parliament bill by the House of Commons, it was then prorogued again on 25 October 1948. Accordingly, even if the prorogation under consideration in the present case was, as the claimant and the interveners contend, designed to advance the government’s political agenda regarding withdrawal from the European Union rather than preparations for the Queen’s speech, that is not territory in which a court can enter with judicial review.

This is from the FT’s legal commentator, David Allen Green.

Interesting that there is now not even any lip-service at the Supreme Court that the prorogation was for a new Queen's Speech

Government submissions seem to be that the prorogation power stands, whatever its purpose and effect

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Hopes of clean break with EU are nonsense, says ex-Brexit official

A no-deal exit would trigger complex negotiations, argues former top DexEU civil servant

Claiming a no-deal Brexit represents a clean break with the European Union is “nonsensical”, according to Philip Rycroft, the former permanent secretary at the Department for Exiting the EU.

Boris Johnson has promised to extricate the UK from the EU on 31 October “come what may” – and has hinted that he could try to get around legislation mandating him to request a Brexit delay.

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Lessons of the second world war are at risk of being forgotten, or even rewritten | Sadiq Khan

As we mark the 80th anniversary of the start of the second world war, with liberal democracies again under siege, Britain should be leading the fight against extremism

Eighty years ago, the start of the second world war saw Nazi Germany invading Poland. Six years later, up to 85 million people were dead. I’m in Poland this weekend to commemorate the start of the bloodiest war in human history.

An entire generation of brave men and women around the globe sacrificed everything to defeat the singular evil of Nazism and fascism.

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Donald Trump’s ‘go back’ comments were ‘genius’, says Nigel Farage

Brexit leader admits racist remarks about congresswomen made him feel uncomfortable but says they were shrewd

Nigel Farage has described Donald Trump’s “go back” comments aimed at four congresswomen of colour as “genius”.

The US president’s racist remarks were widely condemned after he told the four Democrats known as the Squad to return to the “broken and crime infested places from which they came”.

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Ann Widdecombe likens Brexit to emancipation of slaves

Widdecombe becomes first Brexit party MEP to speak in new European parliament

The former Conservative minister Ann Widdecombe has likened the UK’s departure from the EU to the emancipation of slaves, as she became the first Brexit party MEP to speak in the new European parliament.

With her leader, Nigel Farage, on her right, Widdecombe said the recent negotiations among the EU’s heads of state and government over the leadership of the bloc’s institutions confirmed the need for Britain to leave.

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How Brexit party won Euro elections on social media – simple, negative messages to older voters

Analysis highlights key to success of Farage party and identifies dozens of pro-Brexit bot accounts

The Brexit party used simple messaging, an active social media presence and a “overwhelmingly negative” attack to win the online battle before the European elections, according to a new analysis of the campaign.

Nigel Farage’s party accounted for 51% of all shared content on Facebook and Twitter during the campaign, despite only producing 13% of the content. The analysis, by the 89up digital agency, said the “scale of their success went beyond what we were expecting”.

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Peterborough byelection result: Labour scrapes past Brexit party to hold seat

Labour’s Lisa Forbes says result shows ‘the politics of division will never win’

Labour has held on to the marginal seat of Peterborough, overturning predictions that the contest could deliver a first byelection victory for Nigel Farage’s Brexit party.

The victorious Labour candidate, Lisa Forbes, told her supporters after the count early on Friday: “Tonight’s result is significant because it shows that the politics of division will never win.”

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Trump visit avoids major pitfalls despite usual blunders

US president’s behaviour seemed tame in comparison with disastrous visit last year

He insulted London’s mayor, abused an American actor on Twitter at 1.20am, turned Brexit into a threat to the National Health Service, described Meghan Markle as nasty, and behaved as if he was a kingmaker offering audiences to aspirants from the 51st state, and yet to Whitehall’s diplomats Donald Trump’s state visit was by no means the worst in living memory.

It may be that the bar had been set vertiginously low, or that Trump, as a repeat visitor, has lost some of his capacity for shock and awe. Somehow, it seemed tame and normalised in comparison with his previous disastrous visit a year ago. Even the protests felt familiar, and like Trump’s insults aimed at Sadiq Khan, heartfelt but formulaic.

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EU gives Nigel Farage 24 hours to explain Arron Banks funds

European parliament summons Brexit party leader over failure to declare expenses

Nigel Farage has been given 24 hours by the European parliament to explain in person his failure to declare lavish expenses funded by Arron Banks, an insurance tycoon under investigation by the UK’s National Crime Agency.

The summons came just two hours before the Brexit party leader was spotted arriving at the US ambassador’s residence in London for a meeting with Donald Trump during the US president’s state visit to the UK.

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Donald Trump attacks Sadiq Khan as he lands in UK for state visit

US president tweets calling London mayor ‘loser’ before touching down at Stansted

Donald Trump has arrived in the UK for a delayed state visit and set a combative tone by attacking the London mayor as his plane landed.

After Air Force One touched down at Stansted airport, the president and his wife, Melania, were greeted by the foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, one of the contenders in the Conservative leadership race.

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Donald Trump: send in Nigel Farage to negotiate with the EU

US president makes second intervention in British politics, saying UK should ‘walk away’

Donald Trump has called on Britain to leave the European Union without a deal if Brussels refuses to meet its demands, as he urged the government to send Nigel Farage into the negotiations.

In his second extraordinary intervention into British politics ahead of this week’s state visit, the US president suggested the UK should “walk away” from talks and refuse to pay the £39bn divorce bill if its requests were not met.

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Trump calls Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage ‘very good guys’ – video

Donald Trump praised the politicians on Thursday, saying they were 'two very good guys, very interesting people'. Speaking to reporters as he left the White House, the US president said he wasn't sure he would endorse either candidate to be the new UK prime minister: 'I haven't thought about supporting them. Maybe it's not my business to support people. But I have a lot of respect for both of those men'

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