Nigel Farage’s new Brexit Party will run candidates at the next general election to unseat MPs who have ‘not delivered Brexit’, the Leave campaigner has said.
Mr Farage said he would use next month’s European Parliament elections as a ‘springboard’ to challenge for seats at Westminster.
His newly founded party – established after his break with UKIP – has come first ahead of Labour and the Conservatives in some opinion polls.
The next general election is not due until 2022 but the fragility of Theresa May’s government has led to ongoing speculation of an earlier poll.
Nigel Farage ‘s new Brexit Party will run candidates at the next general election, the Leave campaigner (pictured with Ann Widdecombe in London yesterday) has said
Speaking to The Sun, Mr Farage said: ‘We want the European election to be the first step of a massive change that resteps entirely British politics and actually makes it look more like the country.
‘MPs will realise that if they carry on trying to stop Brexit, they’ll lose their seats at the next General Election. I think they will be very fearful of what the Brexit Party can do to them.
‘That’ll give them two choices – either they change and start to deliver Brexit, or we’ll replace them at that General Election.’
He said he ‘did not believe’ that Parliament would deliver Brexit unless MPs faced pressure from his new party.
Mr Farage left as leader of his former party, UKIP, criticising its closer association with ex-English Defence League leader Tommy Robinson.
Robinson announced today he is standing as an Independent MEP in the North West, pledging to represent ‘the working class of England’.
Many Conservatives fear the Tories will suffer heavy losses to Mr Farage’s Brexit Party if – as now seems likely – the UK is forced to go ahead with voting in the European elections on May 23.
The Brexit Party has surged into the lead in the race for the European Elections after a top pollster predicted Nigel Farage’s new party could win its first election
Among the candidates for Mr Farage’s new outfit will be former shadow home secretary Ann Widdecombe, who is to stand for the chance to be MEP for the South-West of England.
Miss Widdecombe, who was Tory MP for Maidstone from 1987 to 2010 and served as a minister under John Major from 1990-97, was expelled from the party as a result.
Welcoming her to the Brexit Party, Mr Farage said: ‘I think she’s doing a brave thing, and she’s doing the right thing.
‘She’s doing it for, I think, the most important principle in terms of what we are as a country, certainly in our lifetimes and probably for centuries in many ways.
‘This is about how the world views us. Are we a democracy? Do we have a bond of trust between the people and Parliament? So, this really matters.’
Miss Widdecombe said: ‘I believe that we will certainly be huge winners in the Euro elections. We will grow from there if Parliament doesn’t listen, doesn’t deliver, we will then grow.’
Brexit Party candidate James Wells (pictured) said he has resigned as a civil servant at the Office for National Statistics to pursue his political goals
Brexit party candidate James Wells, who is standing in Wales, told a press conference in Manchester that as a civil servant banned from political involvement, he resigned from his job as head of UK trade at the Office for National Statistics only on Tuesday.
He left work for the last time on Tuesday at 4pm and was now embarking on a campaign to become an MEP.
‘It’s been a bit of a whirlwind,’ he said, but he could no longer go on ‘shouting at the TV’ as he believed ‘democratic values’ were being ‘trampled over’.
Scotland region candidate, entrepreneur Louis Stedman Bryce, 44, said democracy was being ‘betrayed’ and he was ‘tired’ of the way Brexit voters were portrayed.
Mr Stedman Bryce said: ‘The perception is we are white, homophobic, racists, and don’t know what we voted for.
Mr Farage (pictured in Clacton-on-sea yesterday) said he wanted a ‘massive change that resteps entirely British politics and actually makes it look more like the country’
‘So I stand before you today as a gay black man. And I definitely know what I was voting for. I voted for Brexit.’
Martin Daubney, now a regular TV pundit but the former editor of 90s ‘lads’ mag’ Loaded, said his former job strayed into ‘politically incorrect’ territory but was better than the current ‘joyless Twitter-sphere’.
He said that as the son of a Nottinghamshire coal miner, he believed the current Westminster politicians were ‘clueless’ about the ‘real world’ of ordinary people’s lives and ‘don’t know what a day’s work is’.
The West Midlands Brexit Party candidate added: ‘Why don’t we replace these people? Why don’t we kick them out?
‘Do you believe in democracy, or do you want to deny it?’