Boris Johnson has snubbed Nigel Farage’s offer to form a Brexit pact to stop Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn winning the December 12 election.
The Tory leader told the BBC he is ‘always grateful for advice’ but he would not enter into election pacts as this could cost him votes.
Earlier today Farage offered Johnson an ultimatum – drop his Withdrawal Agreement and form a ‘Leave Alliance’ – or face competition from the Brexit Party in every seat in the country.
Farage’s advice was backed by US President Donald Trump, who said if the two men were to ‘get together’ they would be an ‘unstoppable force’ and could do something ‘terrific’.
But in an interview with BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg, the Prime Minister said the difficulty of doing deals with any other party is that it ‘simply risks putting Jeremy Corbyn into Number 10’.
‘I want to be very, very clear that voting for any other party than this government, this Conservative government… is basically tantamount to putting Jeremy Corbyn in’, he said.
In a separate interview with ITV, he said the only way to get Brexit done was to vote Conservative.
He said: ‘Vote for this government because unfortunately as I tried to point out if you vote for any other party the risk is you’ll just get Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour Party, dither and delay, not just one referendum next year but two referendums.’
He also defended the Brexit Deal he struck with Brussels just two weeks before the UK was initially meant to leave the EU on October 31st.
Brexit Party leader Mr Farage said Johnson’s current agreement is ‘kicking the can down the road’ and said Northern Ireland has been ‘hived off’ under it.
Johnson made clear today that he will fight the election campaign on a pledge to deliver his deal, killing any hopes of a collaboration between the two parties.
Mr Johnson also rejected Donald Trump’s claim that his EU deal may hinder a future trade deal between the US and UK.
Speaking to Sky News he said: ‘I’m afraid I don’t wish to cast any aspersions on the president of the United States, but in that respect he is patently in error, anybody who looks at our deal can see it is a great deal.
‘What it does is it allows us to take back control of our money, our borders and our laws, but also it allows us to have full unfettered control of our tariff schedules in Geneva and to do it as one United Kingdom.
‘That deal is ready to go, we’ve negotiated it. People said it wasn’t possible. But there it is.’
He said he hoped the government could get Brexit ‘over the line’ by the middle of January if he wins a majority, claiming that the current Parliament would never have passed his Brexit deal.
He accused Tory rebels and opposition MPs of deliberately ‘rope-a-dopeing the government’ to push the Brexit deadline back, leaving him with ‘no choice’ but to call an election.
He said: ‘Nobody wants an election but we’ve got to do it now.’
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