Tories rise in poll after Nigel Farage’s seat gift

Boris Johnson has opened up a 14-point poll lead after Nigel Farage decided to pull Brexit Party candidates out of Tory-held seats.

Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and education spokeswoman Angela Rayner campaigning at Bloomfield Road football stadium in Blackpool. Picture: Getty Images

Boris Johnson has opened up a 14-point poll lead over Labour after Nigel Farage’s decision to pull Brexit Party candidates out of Tory-held seats.

A YouGov survey puts the Conservatives on 42 per cent, ­Labour on 28 per cent and the ­Liberal Democrats on 15 per cent.

It is the first time the Prime Minister’s party has been on more than 40 per cent in YouGov’s ­national polling since February, when the Brexit Party was launched by Mr Farage.

The polling is the first to take account of Mr Farage’s decision on Monday to pull out of 317 seats won by the Tories in 2017.

It suggests that in Conservative-held seats the overwhelming majority of Brexit Party supporters will back Mr Johnson.

The poll will increase pressure on Mr Farage to consolidate the Leave vote by also withdrawing his candidates from Labour marginal seats that the Conservatives must win if they are to achieve an overall majority on December 12.

One of Mr Farage’s closest ­allies has called on him to back down, warning that there were just “48 hours to save Brexit”. Nominations close late on Thursday (Australian time).

Arron Banks, who has bankrolled Mr Farage in the past, said that Mr Johnson’s deal was the “most realistic way to get Brexit”. He said he wanted to ­ensure Mr Johnson won an overall majority at the election. “The Conservative Party is the Brexit Party,” he said.

“Nigel reminds me of a gambler at a casino that’s been winning all night and it’s time to take the chips off the table and step away. What we are offering the geezer, as you might say, is Brexit.”

But Mr Farage insisted that he had already given significant ground — and several dozen seats to the Tories by not splitting the vote in the first-past-the-post system. He said that generosity had not been reciprocated.

“I’ve just gifted the Conservative Party nearly two dozen seats and I did it because I believe in Leave. Now if they believed in Leave what they would do is stand aside in some seats in Labour areas where the Conservative Party has not won for 100 years and will never win,’’ he said.

He later told the BBC: “I would have expected, having put country before party, to perhaps have got something back from the Conservatives. But no, nothing is good enough for them.

“It is clear to me it is not a Leave majority they want in parliament, it is just a Tory one.”

When the YouGov poll gave ­respondents a choice of all parties on offer, the Conservatives gain 39 per cent of the vote, Labour 26 per cent, the Lib Dems 16 per cent and the Brexit Party 9 per cent. But when voters were given a choice of only the parties and candidates likely to be standing in their constituency, support for the Brexit Party halved to 4 per cent, with the Tories up three points on 42 per cent, Labour up two on 28 per cent, and the Lib Dems on 15 per cent.

Labour’s improvement between the two polls suggests that it picks up support when voters are prompted with the name of an ­individual candidate.

Meanwhile, several senior aides to Mr Johnson are poised to enter parliament next month after being selected to fight safe Conservative seats.

The Prime Minister’s Brexit ­adviser, business adviser and political secretary are all almost certain to move from Downing Street on to the green benches after the election, along with senior advisers to Dominic Raab and Rishi Sunak.

Andrew Griffith, Mr Johnson’s chief business adviser, was selected to fight the southeast England seat of Arundel and South Downs. Nick Herbert, who has held the seat since 2005, is standing down. At the last election he had a 40 per cent majority over Labour.

James Wild, Mr Johnson’s Brexit adviser, was also selected to fight the seat of North West Norfolk, which has a Conservative ­majority of 28 per cent.

Danny Kruger, the Prime Minister’s political secretary, was ­selected in Devizes, in the southwest, to replace former cabinet minister Claire Perry, who had a majority of 42 per cent at the last poll.

Former Conservative cabinet minister David Gauke announced he would stand as an independent candidate in South West Hertfordshire, which he won in 2017, and would back a second referendum.

The Times

Additional reporting: Jacquelin Magnay