Iain Dale And Brexit Party Chairman Clash Over Standing Candidates Against Tories

3 November 2019, 15:18

Iain Dale and the Brexit Party chairman, Richard Tice, clashed over whether it could potentially 'jeopardise' Brexit if the Brexit Party stand candidates in 600 seats.

Iain Dale said to Richard Tice: "Now, what you're doing here is you're going to stand all these candidates all over the country and make a Conservative majority much less likely."

Tice responded: "You know full well that back in 2015 when Nigel's predecessor party, UKIP, when they stood, actually, they took more votes in the Labour constituencies and, interestingly, the reason that Cameron got his majority in 2015 was because they won marginal seats in some of the marginal areas because of the number of votes that UKIP took from the Labour Party.

So you know, it's wrong to assume that we will only take votes from Conservatives.

There are five million Labour voters who voted Brexit who are deeply, deeply angry that the Labour Party is no longer going to carry out its manifesto commitment."

Iain Dale said: "Many people in the Brexit Party believe that you should only be standing in those kinds of seats and not in the seats that would jeopardise a Conservative victory, say in the South West."

Tice said: "We're not here to help the Conservative Party."

Iain responded: "You're here to deliver Brexit, aren't you. That's what you want to do. People say you're jeopardising it."

Tice replied: "Our real concern is that what Boris is pushing will not lead to Brexit. It will lead to a permanent, never-ending transition period."

He added: "We want to make sure that voters around the country you know, they're not misled by lazy statements from existing politicians."

They then disagreed over control of fishing waters and when we would "get back control".

They also debated negotiating power and the imbalance of trade.

Tice later said: "Our deep concern is that the flaws in this agreement are that we will be trapped in this transition period and that the negotiating team, you know, will not do a good enough job to protect key issues that are vital in terms of taking back control of our sovereignty, our laws, our trade, our borders, our fishing waters."

Iain Dale asked him if the Brexit Party would accept an offer of having a person on their free trade agreement negotiating team in return for not standing in every seat.

Tice responded: "Well, the reality is that Nigel made an offer to Conservatives at the end of the at the end of August. They just automatically rejected it.

"He's made an offer on Friday. They've automatically rejected it.

They know where we are, if they want to talk about something, do you know what, why not have the courtesy to give us a ring?"

He said they wouldn't rule out the offer because they're "always prepared to put country before party".