Nigel Farage has been snubbed by members of his own party, as four Brexit Party MEPs are set to quit the party on Thursday, with one week to go before the election.
John Longworth, former British Chambers of Commerce chief, and Annunziata Rees-Mogg are among the group resigning, who have all urged voters to give their ballots to the Tories instead.
According to the MailOnline, party sources have confirmed that Longworth and Rees-Mogg will step back from the Brexit Party alongside Lance Forman and Lucy Harris.
The four MEPs will be standing as independent members of European parliament.
Longworth had his whip removed yesterday after allegedly voting in favour of Boris Johnson’s divorce package in European Parliament.
The Brexit Party opposes the deal in principle and has ordered all MEPs to vote against it, claiming it is not ‘real Brexit’.
Nigel Farage said he was “disappointed” by the news.
He said: “We are disappointed that four of our MEPs don’t seem to understand that we both saved the Conservative party from large scale losses to the Liberal Democrats in the South and South West of England but we are also hammering the Labour Leave vote in its traditional heartlands making it much easier for the Conservatives to win many of those seats.
“The only vote on the Leave side that is currently being split is in areas such as Barnsley, the South Wales Valleys, Doncaster and Hartlepool where there is a risk that the Tories will split our vote.”
Commenting Best for Britain chief executive Naomi Smith said: “As if it wasn’t obvious before, the Tory party have completely morphed into the Brexit Party. They are now not just stealing policies, they’re also taking people.
“It’s clear that a vote for the Conservatives or the Brexit Party means the hardest form of Brexit possible, leading to economic chaos.”
“The only way to stop that outcome is to vote tactically, supporting the candidate with the best chance of beating the Tories or the Brexit Party.” A spokesperson for the Brexit Party singled out Longworth and Rees-Mogg for an apparent pro-Tory bias, adding: “We also note that one of the MEPs is the sister of a Cabinet Minister, another has a partner who works in the office of the same Cabinet Minister and yet another is a personal friend of both Boris Johnson and Michael Gove.”
They continued: “In the case of John Longworth, who was for years the firmest advocate of WTO withdrawal that we have ever met, he underwent a metamorphosis into being a supporter of the new EU treaty following two days of meetings in London.”
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