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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Politics
Oliver Milne

Brexit Party 'could pull out of hundreds of seats' and target Labour in election

Nigel Farage's Brexit Party could be set to ditch contests in hundreds of seats in a bid to focus on winning the most pro-Leave seats, according to reports.

It comes after a senior MEP in the party said it should abandon plans to target 600 constituencies at the general election and focus on about 20 mostly pro-Leave Labour seats.

John Longworth, who represents Yorkshire and the Humber told the Times : "I think it is important for us to be sensible.

"I think we ought to be targeted in terms of the number of seats that we decide to address."

He added: "I can imagine that might be 20 or 30. They would be entirely winnable then if you poured all your resources into them.

"You probably would not get any more if you concentrated on the 600.

"But you would also get a better result for Brexit too."

John Longworth said the party should target its resources (Sky News)

But senior party sources have rubbished claims they are looking to abandon seats and said that all would be revealed when the party launched its campaign.

But Aaron Banks, founder of the Leave.EU campaign and close ally of Mr Farage, told the Financial Times that the party should use resources wisely.

He said: "If Nigel takes a tactical, pragmatic approach on where to run to help deliver Brexit he’ll be rewarded by voters".

A Brexit Party spokesman said: “We continue to wish to have the broadest collection of clean Brexiters — in line with the result of the 2016 referendum — in parliament as possible to ensure a clean Brexit.”

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