For months, the Brexit Party has been claiming to have a full slate of candidates ready to fight the next election yet HOPE not hate can reveal there are hundreds of missing candidates.
On Twitter, Nigel Farage claimed:
The Brexit Party has 635 men and women from all walks of life who are prepared to fight a general election. We are ready. pic.twitter.com/rKH4sA6n8O
— Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) August 27, 2019
The same day, Richard Tice, chairman of the Brexit Party, said:
Today @Nigel_Farage and I start election planning with over 500 of our prospective parliamentary candidates in London.
— Richard Tice (@TiceRichard) August 27, 2019
Join us live from 11am at https://t.co/MRy7PTzzzX
But do they REALLY have those numbers? The media seems to have taken them at their word, but all is not as it seems. The Brexit Party only formally announced 225 candidates on Twitter, before suddenly going silent. Another 120 or so announced themselves, either on Twitter or via local media. But where are the nearly 300 missing candidates?
Where, for example, is the candidate for Birmingham Edgebaston? Or Birmingham Hall Green? Or Birmingham Hodge Hill, Birmingham Ladywood, Birmingham Northfield, Birmingham Selly Oak or Birmingham Ladywood?
We know who two of the candidates are in Birmingham, because they’re actively campaigning in their constituencies and on social media. So are we to believe that the Brexit Party has another seven candidates in Birmingham who have been told NOT to introduce themselves to their constituents, despite an election being just weeks away
We’re not the only ones asking. Across the country, potential activists and voters are baffled by the absence of a candidate in their area:
Even some of the candidates are confused. Jerry Gorman, the candidate for Scunthorpe, doesn’t know who the candidate for Goole is, despite being just a 30 minute drive away:
It’s possible that this is all just part of some clever strategy on the part of the Brexit Party. But “Not telling telling the voters who half of your candidates are” is certainly an unusual tactic.
Surely the thousands of Brexit Party supporters who paid £25 to to fund the party would be outraged if it turned out that the party never even planned to stand in their constituencies? Surely Nigel Farage wouldn’t have lied about his party’s intentions? We’ll find out later today…
A Reform Party candidate fantasised about deporting “millions” of British citizens to “rid itself of the foreign plague we have been diseased with”. UPDATE: Reform…
