Nigel Farage Gifts the Tories Another 42 Seats

It is impossible not to admire Nigel Farage. I felt that way when I met the man about six years ago and I still retain all my admiration for his work over the past two decades to free the UK from the tentacles of the EU. I just wish that he was more astute as a strategist, that's all. As a campaigner he is great, but he does seem to have forgotten of late that Brexit is not about any single man it really is about leaving the EU.

His unilateral decision to stand down his candidates in 317 Tory seats will certainly help Boris, but almost as important was the failure to find candidates - or have them resign rather than split the Brexit vote - in 42 more. Most of them are in Scotland where The Brexit Party has collapsed to all intents and purposes as I reported recently, but there are a few others in ultra marginals that the Tories need to win if they are to stay in office. 

Farage has gifted those seats to Boris, albeit as a result of The Brexit Party's incompetence, rather than by any design on Nigel Farage's part. Still, Boris needs good luck as well as good management, and Lady Luck has just smiled on him 42 times.

Brexit Party Will Not Contest Edinburgh West

Following on from yesterday's posting, now that nominations for the elections have now closed, The Brexit Party will not stand a candidate in Edinburgh West. Michael Boyd was due to be the sacrificial lamb to Nigel Farage's ego but following representations from any number of people, including me, he decided to stand down. His replacement happens to be a friend of mine and as soon as I told him what the situation was in this constituency he decided not to bother as well.

Sadly, The Brexit Party has managed to find two people who will stand in this city, one in Edinburgh North & Leith and the other in Edinburgh South-West. Neither has any hope of saving his deposit and neither will get any support from a party that has basically collapsed as an electoral force.

Both were chosen at the panic-stricken meeting that was called at the Marriott Hotel on Tuesday when pretty much anyone who had 500 quid in his pocket to pay his election deposit was allowed to stand.

Across the whole of Great Britain, the press is reporting that the clownish buffoonery that we have seen in Scotland is being repeated, with candidates standing down and being replaced by anyone who is willing to put his name forward and stump up the deposit. God knows who these people are, but I expect that more than a few will come into the category of headbangers and the press should have a field day reporting on their weird and wonderful views.

All good fun, but I just wish that Farage had taken his victory and left the field wide open for Boris to get a thumping majority.

Exclusive: The Brexit Party Has Collapsed in Scotland

The Brexit Party appears to be falling apart in Scotland, which is good news for those of us who have decided that Boris' way is pretty much the only way to get Brexit done.

Nigel Farage pulled all his senior people out of Scotland a week ago, including the National Organiser. Louis Stedman-Bryce, the party's sole MEP in Scotland was then appointed as the new National Organiser, but given no support or help whatsoever. He was due to stand as the candidate in Glasgow North but resigned using Farage's decision to pull over 300 candidates from the line as his excuse. Actually, I suspect he realised that he would be left carrying the can for the looming catastrophe and decided to get our sharpish.

Edinburgh West had a candidate named Michael Boyd, a man I wrote to yesterday to urge him not to stay with the Brexit Party's sinking ship. Just today, I got an email from an old friend telling me that he had been asked to stand in this division, so it looks as if Michael Boyd took my advice.

I answered my old friend's email and pleaded with him not to take this poisoned chalice, and I am pleased to report that he will not now be standing for The Brexit Party.

This afternoon, a meeting was called at the Marriot Hotel in Edinburgh's Old Town and pretty much all the attendees were begged to stand in next month's elections, so it looks as if Boyd and Stedman-Bryce are not the only people who have called it a day. By the way, that meeting was only called yesterday, which suggests to me that bowels are liquifying nicely in what is left of the senior reaches of The Brexit Party.

Finally, people are getting text messages begging them to stay at home tomorrow to receive visitors who will ask them to sign candidates' nomination forms. Given that these forms have to be in by 4.00 pm on the dot, and that ten signatures are needed for each one, I think this is a bit of a forlorn hope but never mind. As I understand it one woman who was asked to waste a day indoors told the caller that she was going to the hairdresser's and would be out of touch all day.

What is going on? Basically, Farage is brilliant as the leader of a pressure group and appalling as a party political leader. He only trusts his close friends and anyone who is not a mate of Nigel is kept out of the inner-sanctum. 

The sensible thing for Farage to do would be to pull all his candidates and give Boris a clear run to the Brexit prize, but his ego will not allow him to do that. He must know that candidates that have been chosen the day before nominations close have no chance of even saving their deposits - deposits that they have to find themselves, by the way - but he needs 300 of them to ensure that he gets a free television party election address. Besides that, he has announced that he will have 300 candidates, and his ego means that wants that number.

I do not know what is happening in the rest of the country but in Scotland, The Brexit Party is pretty much finished as a serious political force. 

The field is now wide open for Boris and his gang!