Sign up here to receive the daily news briefing in your inbox every morning with exclusive insight from the BrexitCentral team Brexit Party could help Tories at the general election by not fighting hundreds of seats… The Brexit Party is considering withdrawing hundreds of its general election candidates in what would be a major boost to Boris Johnson’s hopes of winning a majority. Splits have emerged in Nigel Farage’s party over its election strategy, with several senior figures backing the “sensible” option of focusing its resources on a small number of Leave-voting Labour seats that it stands a realistic chance of winning. One senior Brexit Party MEP suggested the party could field as few as 20 candidates, while other sources suggested the figure would be nearer 100. Mr Farage, who previously suggested he would field 600 candidates, said on Wednesday night he was still “working through” his options, but there are fears at the top of the party that splitting the Leave vote in marginal constituencies could lead to a Jeremy Corbyn premiership. – Daily Telegraph (£) …as Nigel Farage reportedly gives Boris Johnson 24 hours to make an electoral pact with him… Brexit Party boss Nigel Farage has given Boris Johnson 24 hours to make an electoral pact with him. Mr Farage will reveal on Friday how many candidates he plans to field as Tory chiefs warn he could let Labour chief Jeremy Corbyn into No10 by splitting the pro-Brexit vote. He had threatened to stand in all 650 seats but it emerged on Wednesday night he may slash it to just a few dozen. A source close to Mr Farage said: “A Leave alliance would win a big majority.” In a cryptic message, the Brexit Party told all candidates on Wednesday: “Important. Please all go dark on social media. Do not respond to any questions about where we (are) standing, what the strategy or plan is from now on. Things will be made clear . . . very soon.” It also emerged that two Brexit Party candidates are former Communists. Husband and wife John and Yasmin Fitzpatrick will stand in North Thanet and East Surrey. The Sun can reveal that both stood for election for the Red Front in 1987, a communist faction which pushed a series of hardline positions including the reunification of Ireland. A Tory MP on Wednesday night claimed the Fitzpatricks’ selection cast heavy doubt on how well Mr Farage’s new party has screened extremists from representing them. Tory MP Mark Francois mocked the Brexit Party for selecting candidates “who were too Left-wing even for Jeremy Corbyn”. – The Sun …amidst Brexit Party divisions over election tactics Senior figures in the Brexit party are divided over whether they should contest every seat in the general election – or give committed Tory Brexit supporters a clear run. The party, led by the former Ukip leader Nigel Farage, is hoping to secure its first MPs this December when it stands in a general election for the first time. But splits are emerging between those who want to run in all 650 seats and others who would prefer to focus on a smaller, targeted list. The Brexit party chair, Richard Tice, has said the party has vetted 600 candidates so far and hopes to run in up to 650 seats. Farage is said to be in the middle on the strategy in terms of numbers. Others are urging for caution and suggest working on a much-reduced list of target seats in case they split the Brexit vote and threaten the chance of Britain leaving the EU. Arron Banks, who co-founded the Leave.EU campaign group with Tice, said that there is a “split view on what to do” within the party, which will go to the electorate with a promise to deliver a “clean Brexit” – a form of no deal. He said: “What I was saying was, be strategic. Where it makes sense to stand, stand. Where it doesn’t, don’t.” Farage is currently away in Washington but decisions on where the party is going to stand will take place over the weekend, it is understood, after their election launch due to take place later this week. – Guardian > Brian Monteith MEP today on BrexitCentral: A Brexit Party perspective on “splitting the Leave vote” at the general election > Simon Richards yesterday on BrexitCentral: It’s time for Boris to pull off another deal – with the Brexit Party A no-deal Brexit is still possible, EU’s Michel Barnier warns A no-deal Brexit is not yet off the table and there is still a risk of the UK crashing out of the EU, Michel Barnier has said. Speaking on Wednesday with the UK heading for a general election, the EU’s chief negotiator also warned that future trade talks would be “difficult and demanding”. “The risk of Brexit happening without a ratified deal still exists. We still need to prepare,” Mr Barnier said during a speech in Brussels. He warned that there was a “big difference” in no-deal preparedness “in all member states”, particularly between larger companies and smaller companies – who he said could be vulnerable. “It’s not time to become complacent. Work with SMEs in particular needs to continue,” he added. Mr Barnier said a no-deal exit could happen at the end of January, if the newly elected UK parliament failed to ratify Mr Johnson’s deal and there was no further call for an Article 50 extension. He also highlighted that a no-deal could happen at the end of 2020 if the UK government did not agree to extend the transition period and no free trade agreement (FTA) had been struck by then. – Independent Tory election win will leave MPs with three or four months to stop No Deal, says expert The UK will have only “three or four months” to avert a crash-out Brexit if Boris Johnson wins the election and passes his deal, a leading academic has warned. And MPs will be powerless to prevent the prime minister pursuing a no deal at the end of 2020 if he chooses, the Commons Exiting the European Union Committee was told. Mr Johnson has insisted the post-Brexit transition period will end in December 2020, regardless of whether he has agreed a new trade and security agreement with the EU by that deadline. But Catherine Barnard, the professor of EU Law at Cambridge University, warned it was “very unlikely” a complex new deal would be agreed by then – and that an extension to the transition must be requested by June 2020. “That process of requesting an extension, of course, will have to happen within three or four months of us having left,” she told the MPs. And she warned: “There is a process by which parliament can scrutinise whether a request should be made, but not actually trigger the asking for an extension.” One Tory Brexiteer on the committee said the process sounded “depressingly complicated” and questioned whether it would be “easier to leave without a deal”. – Independent Lib Dems will stand aside for Dominic Grieve in Beaconsfield… The Liberal Democrats will step aside for Tory rebel Dominic Grieve in his Beaconsfield constituency, as research reveals Boris Johnson will win a majority of 44 if there is no tactical voting. Mr Grieve confirmed the electoral pact at a Best for Britain event, saying: “The Lib Dems will not put a candidate up against me.” He claimed that “many” traditional Labour party supporters in his community would also “choose to vote for me”. Former Lib Dem leader Vince Cable added that it would be “mad” for his party not to “get behind” Mr Grieve. Research compiled for the Remain supporting campaign group Best For Britain found that it would take 30 per cent of people to vote tactically to deprive Boris Johnson of a majority. – Telegraph (£) …as Remain campaigners say that only tactical voting by pro-EU voters can deprive Johnson of a majority Boris Johnson could be deprived of a majority in the upcoming election if fewer than a third of pro-EU voters abandon party loyalty, a new survey has found. Research for the Best for Britain campaign shows the Conservatives could win a 44-seat majority in the Christmas poll, with 364 seats, compared with Labour’s 189, 23 for the Lib Dems, three for Plaid Cymru and one for the Greens. But if 30 per cent of voters cast their ballot tactically, it could swing the election to give pro-referendum parties a majority of four, according to a seat-by-seat analysis of 46,000 people over September and October. – Independent Brexiteer former Cabinet minister David Jones scraps plan to stand down… Former Welsh Secretary and Brexit minister David Jones has reversed his decision to stand down at the next general election. The Clwyd West Conservative MP said in September it was time for him to step aside at the age of 67. But Mr Jones said the decision to call a snap election on 12 December had made him think again. The pro-Brexit MP, who was elected in 2005, played a significant role in the Welsh Vote Leave campaign in 2016. “The position is that I have been asked by a number of members of my association to stand,” Mr Jones told the Local Democracy Reporting Service. “I have also had a number of constituents who have asked me to stand. “I am particularly keen to ensure that I’m in the House at the time that Brexit is ultimately delivered because I have spent the best part of the last four years concentrating on Brexit and I had hoped that it would have been concluded by the time I had left. “Because of what has happened over the last few weeks, clearly that is not going to be the case. So I want to come back to help deliver Brexit.” – BBC News …as Culture Secretary Nicky Morgan announces she won’t stand for re-election… Nicky Morgan has announced she will not stand again as an MP. Mrs Morgan, who is currently the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, has represented Loughborough since the 2010 election. In a letter to her constituents she said she could not continue to make sacrifices required of being an MP without parliament doing “what it is supposed to do”. She says being the MP for the area has been “the greatest privilege of my life”. But she adds: “The clear impact on my family, and the other sacrifices involved in and the abuse for, doing the job of a modern MP, can only be justified if ultimately parliament does what it is supposed to do – represent those we serve in all areas of policy, respect votes cast by the electorate, and make decisions in the overall national interest.” Mrs Morgan is the first sitting cabinet minister to announce they won’t be seeking re-election in December. – Sky News Nicky Morgan in exodus of moderate Tory MPs – The Times (£) …and Amber Rudd bows out as Chief Whip refuses to allow her back into the Tory fold Amber Rudd has claimed Boris Johnson asked her to run in the next general election amid a spat over her not being given back the Tory whip. The former minister, who resigned from the Cabinet in solidarity with ejected Conservative rebels earlier this year, said the PM made the request “just last week”. She earlier told the Standard she would be leaving the Commons ahead of the next election – but hoped to do so after being welcomed back into the fold of her former party. However, those hopes were dashed by chief whip Mark Spencer as he wrote to her stating he was not in a position to do so, as he did not trust she would not turn on the PM again. Ms Rudd has responded to this letter and said: “Funny thing really, as just last week the PM asked me to stand in the General Election.” She then further hit out at the chief whip and tweeted that he “has been briefed by the wrong ‘No 10 Sources’ this morning”. Nonetheless I respect the decision he had been asked to make,” she concluded. – Evening Standard Boris Johnson taunts John Bercow over a ‘retirement longer than Frank Sinatra’s’ Boris Johnson accused John Bercow of stretching his departure into “the longest retirement since Frank Sinatra’s” as the controversial Commons Speaker stood down after more than a decade. The Prime Minister also questioned his impartiality as he compared Mr Bercow to the main character in Scarface and drew parallels with his ability to “stretch time” with the famed theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking. Mr Bercow has repeatedly delayed his retirement after staying on for a second Parliament, while infuriating ministers with his perceived anti-Brexit bias since the EU referendum. They said it was absurd to appoint a Speaker who would serve for as little as a day before Parliament was dissolved for the December 12 election. Brexiteer MPs suspect an attempt by Remainer MPs to elect a speaker now because of fears that leaving it until afterwards would risk a Brexiteer being elected by a Tory majority Commons. Tradition dictates that a Speaker is guaranteed re-election by standing unopposed in their constituency. Marking Mr Bercow’s final Prime Minister’s Questions, Mr Johnson questioned his impartiality with a reference to the Speaker’s passion for tennis. He said: “As befits a distinguished former Wimbledon competitor, you have sat up there in your high chair not just as an umpire ruthlessly adjudicating on the finer points of parliamentary procedure with your trademark Tony Montana scowl”. – Telegraph (£) Dominic Cummings to remain at Boris Johnson’s side in election campaign after delaying surgery Dominic Cummings is to continue in his role as Boris Johnson’s special adviser through the General Election after postponing a planned operation for a second time. Mr Cummings, who was campaign director for Vote Leave, delayed the operation in July when he was recruited by the Prime Minister to help deliver Brexit by October 31st. He was due to take time off after that but Government sources confirmed that he will stay on for the pre-Christmas election to work alongside Isaac Levido, the campaign director at Conservative Campaign Headquarters. A source said: “CCHQ and the campaign will be led by Isaac Levido, our campaign director, but Dominic Cummings will continue in his role as assistant to the Prime Minister” It is understood Mr Cummings will be talking to doctors and will take advice over the operation that was postponed until November. He might need to take a couple of weeks off at some point. Mr Johnson was reluctant to lose Mr Cummings as a key strategist behind the successful Vote Leave campaign and the architect of his “people versus the Parliament” narrative. – Telegraph (£) Boris Johnson faces tough fight to hold his constituency – The Sun People’s Vote campaign to stop Brexit ‘ground to a halt’ after row and can’t take part in election The main anti-Brexit campaign will be unable to take part in the general election after being torn apart by a row, insiders fear. Staff at the People’s Vote coalition are in open revolt against Roland Rudd, chairman of the Open Britain group which is its biggest member, after he sacked the director and communications chief. They have refused to work under the new director he has appointed and accuse him of overstepping his authority by firing James McGrory and Tom Baldwin, former spin doctors for Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband respectively. Disgruntled employees sent a detailed briefing note, seen by i, which laid out a list of complaints and claimed People’s Vote will have to cancel its plans for the election, which were designed to push up the number of pro-Remain candidates returned to the House of Commons. The document said: “The key tenets of the PV campaign – including tactical voting – have ground to a halt.” It appealed to anti-Brexit officials from the political parties to join the coup against Mr Rudd, brother of ex-Home Secretary Amber, in order to rescue the campaign. He insists his actions were necessary to professionalise the organisation and prepare for a second referendum. – iNews Jack Powell: It’s time for the Brexit party to stand aside After two long years, MPs look set to vote for a general election, finally giving the public the chance to break the maddening impasse within the House of Commons. In that election, the battleground will be fierce: the pro-remain vote will hold nothing back, seeing it as their last chance to stop Brexit. As such, it is truly bizarre that the Brexit party, a group of people who actively declare they put “country before party”, looks set to challenge the Tories, with the party’s chair reportedly considering challenging Boris Johnson in his own constituency. It’s certainly true that a lot of Brexiteers were, at first sight of the new deal, worried about the “level playing field” provisions in the political declaration. Those few lines seemed to be a real sticking point. But the narrative is misleading to say the least. Everything that’s in the political declaration is non-binding, meaning that it’s up for negotiation in the next round of talks. If proposals are put forward that the UK finds unacceptable, the government will have the ability to walk away. Indeed, nobody is claiming that the deal is perfect, but it does take the whole of the UK out of the single market and customs union, it does end the jurisdiction of the European court of justice, it does scrap freedom of movement, it does mean no longer sending huge sums of money to the EU every year, and it does grant the UK trade and regulatory autonomy. If you had offered that package to the Brexit party’s MEPs three years ago, they would have been delighted. After all, Nigel Farage has spent many years of his life campaigning to leave the EU. He should take solace in the knowledge that a Brexiteer now holds the keys to No 10 and is leading a party committed to doing just that. Or he can choose to risk it all and pave the way for a pro-EU, far-left party instead. It’s his choice. – Jack Powell for 1828 James Crisp: Why Brussels has its fingers crossed that a general election will deliver victory for Boris Johnson and not Jeremy Corbyn Jeremy Corbyn victory in the election would cause such a headache for Brussels that many EU officials and diplomats are secretly rooting for Boris Johnson. The European Commission would never admit as much in public, mindful of the protocol that prevents it from commenting on the internal political matters of EU member countries. Brussels is not immune to Brexit fatigue and the EU27 is keen to get the divorce deal done as quickly as possible after more than three years of tortuous talks and false starts. Officials and diplomats are exhausted by the unpredictability and inability of the current parliament to back any single course of action. There is recognition that the quickest and simplest way to get the newly-minted Brexit agreement ratified is a Conservative government with a majority. The EU would welcome Labour’s preference for a customs union and closer trading relationship, although some scoff at the idea Britain would be given a truly influential say on EU trade policy after Brexit..EU leaders will be picking at the last of their working dinner at a Brussels summit when the exit polls are announced on December 12. Why would a Corbyn victory be greeted with horror rather than glee at the prospect of a second referendum and a possible vote to Remain? Mr Corbyn, who did not impress EU officials on his previous visits to Brussels, would attempt to renegotiate the freshly renegotiated Brexit agreement. This would mean at least one more Brexit extension beyond the new deadline of January 31, 2020. – James Crisp for the Telegraph (£) Tom Harwood: The Lib Dems have just gambled away Brexit for the sake of winning a few more seats Remainers have just scored the most spectacular own goal in British political history. By capitulating to Boris’s election demand, they have given up their only hope for cancelling Brexit – this perfidious Parliament. Insulated from their electorates by three years of pontificating in the House of Commons, MPs have forgotten the rude awakening they experienced in June 2016, when they were forced to recognise that the country they live in bears very little resemblance to their Twitter timelines. In reality, polling suggests that the British people are beyond fed up. Voters not only want an election, they also want to pass Boris’s new deal. Not that you’d think that from the continual procrastination in Parliament. The Lib Dems have been won over by the enticing prospect of picking up a few more seats in the most Remain-backing areas of the country, at the expense of dozens of Remainer MPs losing their seats to the resurgent Tories. It has become increasingly clear that the Lib Dems have, seen through a Remainer lens, plumped for party over country. They have lost sight of their good luck in being gifted this shambles of a Parliament. It is extraordinary that today a Leave country is represented by Remain politicians, a feat that could only have happened in 2017, an election that became about almost anything other than Brexit. The hot-button issues three years ago were not the UK’s relationship with the EU, they were healthcare, policing, and social care. People, it seems naively, saw the issue of Brexit as having been resolved. An overwhelming majority in Parliament voted to trigger Article 50. The frustrations to come were imagined by only the most dour of pessimists. – Tom Harwood for the Telegraph (£) Douglas Carswell: Boris has made a strategic error in reinstating the Brexit blockers Why, for the fourth time in almost as many years, is the country being invited to go out and vote again? Because, to put it bluntly, the MPs we elected back in 2017 refuse to enact the result of the EU referendum. Even though nine out of ten of them were elected to Parliament only two years ago on manifestos that promised to honour the result, the House of Commons has collectively tried every trick in the book to prevent us from actually leaving. First, Brexit-blocking MPs said that Britain could only leave if we had a deal with the EU. They did this in the hope that an acceptable agreement would be elusive, and we would eventually abandon the entire enterprise. When Boris Johnson, to their dismay, managed to bring back an agreement that could command majority support in Parliament, the Brexit-blockers set about making it procedurally impossible to get the Prime Minister’s deal approved in any recognisable form. At the heart of the cross-party effort to thwart the referendum result have been a small group of Tory MPs who are still unreconciled to Vote Leave’s victory. It would, therefore, be quite bizarre if, in an election brought about by the intransigence of these Brexit blockers, they were allowed to stand as Conservative candidates – and, with a handful of exceptions, they won’t. – Douglas Carswell for the Telegraph (£) Telegraph: Parliament has finally bid farewell to the controversial and divisive John Bercow John Bercow turns out to have been extremely prescient in selecting today to step down from the Speaker’s chair. His departure was timed to coincide with the date of Brexit, which will pass by once again with the UK still inside the EU. In the event, he is leaving at the end of the Parliament after its decision to dissolve for a general election on December 12. It is also 10 years since he was elected to the post in the aftermath of the expenses crisis. There is a certain harmony to his exit that was not evident during much of his time in the post and especially since the country voted for Brexit. It fell to Mr Bercow to preside over the most fractious House of Commons of recent times, convulsed by Brexit. As a result, given his own personal animus towards leaving the EU, he was drawn into the controversy and accused of making partisan rulings. Mr Bercow would always insist he was defending the interests of backbenchers against the Government. But Brexiteers felt he invariably favoured the Remain side over theirs. In his retirement he must ask himself whether he contributed to, rather than ameliorated, the toxic atmosphere that has suffocated this Parliament. Far from being a unifying figure, he has been a divisive one. Perhaps this merely reflected the schisms in the country at large; but it was not his job to make them worse. MPs are to pick a new Speaker on Monday, the penultimate day of the Parliament. Surely it would be better to delay this critical choice until after the election. – Telegraph editorial Leo McKinstry: Britain’s fate is in Boris’s hands – Corbyn will abandon Brexit Our nation’s fate is now in the hands of the British people. The outcome of the December General Election will fix the destiny of our country for years to come. If Boris Johnson wins, then Britain can finally embrace freedom from EU rule, heralding a new era of sound governance and prosperity. But if he is defeated by the forces of the opposition led by Jeremy Corbyn, we will be plunged into chaos and decline, fuelled by the abandonment of Brexit. At first glance, the prospects of a Tory victory appear to be promising, for Johnson’s party has opened up a strong lead in the opinion polls. One survey last week had the Conservatives on 40 percent, 16 points ahead of Labour. According to Sir John Curtice, Britain’s most distinguished pollster, Labour would lose about 50 seats to the Tories if recent poll findings were translated into votes. Boris Johnson has other advantages. On the EU, he has a clear, simple message, “Get Brexit Done”, a slogan that is made all the more potent by the withdrawal agreement he negotiated this month with Brussels. – Leo McKinstry for the Express Comment in Brief Voting for Labour this election is a vote for Marxist extremism, Brexit’s reversal and the probable break-up of the UK – The Sun says Let’s hope Boris Johnson gives turkey Corbyn a stuffing… then we can enjoy Christmas dinner with no Brussels – Trevor Kavanagh for The Sun This election is not all about Brexit – it’s also a choice between State control and freedom – Ross Clark for The Sun