The newly-registered Brexit Party backed by Nigel Farage could run 200 candidates including “QCs, directors, business people, all sorts of highly professional people” if the Tories deliver “Brexit In Name Only”, or BRINO.
Organiser Catherine Blaiklock, a former City of London trader, told Telegraph political correspondent Christopher Hope that “If we get BRINO – Brexit In Name Only – then there becomes an issue about whether that is a satisfactory result and how bad that result is.”
Ms Blaiklock said the party had piqued the interest of an “amazing number of people who have never been in the political process” before, and secured “seven-figure pledges” for a possible campaign war chest – “a lot of people are very very unhappy about what is going on in the political process,” she added.
Former UKIP supremo told The Sun on Sunday the enterprise had his endorsement in January, warning: “There is huge demand for a party that’s got real clarity on [Brexit]. You can see and hear the frustration welling up out there. It’s clear the political elite want to stop Brexit in its tracks… Now we are putting them on notice that if Brexit doesn’t happen on March 29 we are not prepared to stand by and do nothing.”
“If we did go for the European Parliament elections and we would be looking for 70 candidates, I think we would triple that already,” said Blaiklock, referring to the possibility of Britain participating in EU elections scheduled for May 2019, should Brexit be delayed beyond that date.
The Government has insisted it will honour the people’s vote to Leave the European Union in 2016 and that the United Kingdom will therefore not be participating in the European Parliament elections — but, curiously, the Electoral Commission has already set aside hundreds of thousands of pounds for them, with the backing of the Remain-supporting Speaker of the House of Commons.