Farage blasts Boris for flip-flopping on Brexit and says replacing May will NOT fix the Tories

Farage blasts Boris for flip-flopping on Brexit and says replacing May will NOT fix the Tories five days before European elections

  • Farage claimed he doesn’t know where Tory leadership hopeful stands on Brexit
  • First Minister Nicola Sturgeon also branded Johnson a ‘nightmare’ for Scotland
  • Ex-London Mayor announced he will stand to lead party when PM May resigns
  • Polling suggested Conservatives are on track for worst election results in history

Nigel Farage has said he does not know where Boris Johnson stands on Brexit in response to claims he could support the Tory leadership hopeful becoming prime minister.

The Brexit Party leader was being questioned ahead of a party rally in Edinburgh as the new entrant surged in the polls.

He laughed off the suggestion of a pact between the political heavyweights and questioned whether he could trust the leadership favourite.

Yesterday, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon claimed on Friday that Mr Johnson as PM backed by Mr Farage would be a ‘nightmare’ for Scotland.

Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage laughed off the suggestion of supporting a Boris Johnson premiership, and questioned whether he could trust the leadership favourite

Johnson announced his intention to run for the Conservative Party leadership during a keynote address at a conference in Manchester.

Mr Farage said: ‘Would I trust Boris Johnson?

‘Boris wrote in his column repeatedly that Mrs May’s new treaty was vassalage – that we’d become a slave state – and I rather agreed with that analysis, even if his language was more colourful than perhaps what I would use.

‘Then, on the third attempt, he voted for it. So I’m not quite sure where Boris stands on all of this.’

Boris Johnson announced his intention to run for leadership of the Conservative Party during his BIBA keynote on the final day of a conference in Manchester. Pictured: The leadership hopeful at Manchester Picadilly train station

Boris Johnson announced his intention to run for leadership of the Conservative Party during his BIBA keynote on the final day of a conference in Manchester. Pictured: The leadership hopeful at Manchester Picadilly train station

Mr Johnson resigned as foreign secretary last July, days after a plan for leaving the European Union was agreed by Conservative ministers.

He voted against the Prime Minister’s defeated withdrawal agreement twice, before announcing he would back it at the third attempt in March, which was again rejected by MPs in the House of Commons.

The former mayor of London changed his position shortly after Mrs May said she would resign if she could get her deal through, and argued that the decision was to stop Parliament from ‘stealing Brexit’.

On Thursday, Mr Johnson announced he would stand for the Tory leadership when Theresa May steps down and he is the clear favourite, according to a YouGov poll of Conservative Party members for The Times.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon claimed on Friday that Mr Johnson as PM backed by Mr Farage would be a 'nightmare' for Scotland during the launch of the SNP's party manifesto for the European elections

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon claimed on Friday that Mr Johnson as PM backed by Mr Farage would be a ‘nightmare’ for Scotland during the launch of the SNP’s party manifesto for the European elections

Speaking ahead of a Brexit Party rally in Edinburgh, Mr Farage said: ‘The idea that the fortunes of the Conservative Party in England and Wales can be improved just by getting a new leader might be wide of the mark.

‘The sheer level of loss of faith and trust in that party is very high and I think if ever there was a time when we were going to see some sort of realignment of politics going on in the UK, I think now is that moment.’

At the Corn Exchange rally, the former Ukip leader urged pro-independence voters to ‘lend your votes to the Brexit Party’, claiming that Scotland cannot be genuinely independent without leaving the EU.

Farage’s call to independence supporters comes as new polling suggest The Brexit Party could earn more votes than Labour and the Conservatives combined in the European Parliament elections.

In an Opinium poll published in the Observer has predicted that Nigel Farage’s new party will hoover up 34 per cent of the vote.

More worryingly, a ComRes poll in the Sunday Telegraph suggested it could even beat the Tories in a General election, two extraordinary polls revealed this morning.

The survey of voting intentions put Brexit on 21 per cent to the Conservatives’ 20, which would see Farage’s team win 49 seats, becoming the UK’s second biggest party after Labour, with 137.

Read more at DailyMail.co.uk