‘Pain’ And ‘Heartache’ For The Brexit Party As Election Campaign Stutters On

Elaine, in her 60s, is concerned about splitting the Leave vote and letting Labour in again.

“That’s what we’re worried about yes.

“We know Nigel Farage did the best he could (standing down).

“We thought something might have been reciprocated but of course, arrogance and entitlement, it wasn’t.”

She adds: “We were hoping (Tory) Paul Bristow would stand down in Peterborough because Mike Greene (Brexit Party) did get quite a lot more votes than him in June but unfortunately it seems he’s not going to.”

Anna, 68, agrees: “Nigel seems to have taken a back step for some reason and I can understand it to a point because I think what happened in Peterborough last time proved a point that the vote was split between Conservative and Brexit Party, hence 683 votes got Labour in.

Farage’s personal retreat, choosing not to stand, has also caused angst.

“It’s a pity Nigel isn’t standing,” she says.

Mike Fletcher, an ex-Peterborough city councillor who “left them in disgust”, echoes criticism of Farage’s retreat.

“I was disappointed that he did stand down, but I understand his point of view, he knows better than me, but personally I think it was a bad move.

“I think we should have challenged them all the bloody way, get rid of the whole bloody lot of them.”

Now with nothing to lose, and perhaps with one eye on his preferred career as a transatlantic right-wing talking head, Farage at least seems more relaxed than last week when he came under immense pressure to effectively pull out of the election.

He sets his party a target of emulating the DUP, who with 10 MPs became kingmakers in the Brexit battles of parliament after the 2017 election, while suggesting Johnson is on course for a “small majority”.

And despite the concerns of his crowd, he defends his strategy by suggesting it was Ukip’s presence in Peterborough that helped Tory Stewart Jackson to victory in 2015 by taking votes off Labour, only for him to lose in 2017 as the party stood aside.

“Being Eurosceptic, believing we should not be part of the European Union, believing we should be independent, believing we should control our borders and have sensible immigration policies – these are not the preserve of centre-right Conservative voters, millions of Labour voters believe in these things, perhaps even more strongly than those in the Conservative party.

“And a large number of those Labour voters, they’ll vote for us.” 

But many of those voters may ask why, when Farage has implicitly backed Johnson’s Brexit strategy by standing down in Tory seats.

And the disarray in the Brexit Party is highlighted again as Scottish MEP Louis Stedman-Bryce quits as Farage is speaking.