LONDON: Boris Johnson has dismissed as “nonsense” claims that the Conservatives offered peerages to senior Brexit Party figures in a bid to get them to stand aside in the General Election.Nigel Farage has claimed he had repeatedly been offered a seat in the House of Lords in an attempt to persuade him to “go quietly”. He said that, when that failed, people working “deep inside Number 10” had tried to bypass him, going directly to senior Brexit Party figures and suggesting eight of them could be made peers if they could persuade him to withdraw more of his candidates.Asked during a BBC Radio 5 Live phone-in about the claims, the Prime Minister acknowledged that there may have been “conversations” between senior Tories and people in the Brexit Party.However, he flatly denied there had been any offers of peerages, saying that was “just not the way we operate”. “What is this nonsense?” he said. “I am sure that there are conversations that take place between politicians of all parties. Certainly nobody has been offered a peerage, I can tell you that.”He added: “The Conservative Party doesn’t do deals of this kind. It is just not the way we operate. We don’t do deals, I think that will be pretty obvious from what has happened. We have made no undertakings.” The row came amid growing pressure on Farage in the run-up to the close of nominations on Thursday, to stand down Brexit Party candidates in all but a few dozen constituencies to avoid splitting the pro-Leave vote. The Brexit Party leader had already said they would not contest the 317 seats which the Conservatives had won in the 2017 election.
11-17-2019, 03:11 AM
Boris denies offer of peerages to ?buy off? Brexit Party
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