‘A rotten borough’ – Farage is STILL complaining about Peterborough by-election

Shortly after the result the Brexit Party leader tried to turn a second place result into a victory, as he dismissed suggestions his party lost.

He said: “Did we? I don’t know, if you think zero to 29% in a couple of weeks is losing, then it’s losing.

“From nowhere we produced a phenomenal result. If you look at the opinion polls put out by YouGov last night, they actually showed us six points in the lead across the country.”

But now Farage has gone one further by calling Peterborough a “rotten borough” – blaming the postal vote system for voting against his party.

He told MailOnline: “I think there is something inherently wrong with the entire postal voting process in this country.

“I think it’s open to corruption, bribery intimidation, abuse. We’ve seen so many cases now where again and again we find – particularly in the inner cities – postal voting is producing the wrong results.

“And I’m afraid Peterborough looks like another one of those rotten boroughs.”

It follows calls from the council’s deputy leader to scrap postal votes altogether.

Tory counillor Wayne Fitzgerald told the Peterborough Telegraph: “I have grave concerns over postal vote harvesting within certain sections of the community, particularly focused on the urban city wards of Park, Central, North and East.

“We know it goes on with reports of it happening in Asian communities with people coerced.

“My view is postal votes should be scrapped entirely unless you are physically impaired.”

The Electoral Commission insisted the system for postal votes had been tightened up in the last decade, and the council has dismissed claims of malpractice.

A statement said: “Prior to polling day, Peterborough City Council received one unconfirmed report regarding alleged bribery which was referred to the police and on which no further action will be taken.

“One other concern was received on polling day which was also referred to the police but could not be substantiated. No other complaints have been received by the council.”

In the Peterborough by-election the Brexit Party failed to present a manifesto voters, and its candidate was unable to substantiate some of his claims made about the European Union.