General election: Farage says Brexit party will not stand in 317 Tory seats – live news

Farage says he was worried Brexit party could let the Lib Dems take seats from Tories. Follow all the developments nowBrexit party will not contest 317 Tory-won seats, Farage saysFarage’s decision to stand down in Tory seats – Snap analysisLabour promises ‘managed migration’ from EU after BrexitKeith Vaz to stand downHow to send us your stories and views 1.57pm GMT The Scottish Greens have decided not to stand candidates in two hyper-marginal seats being defended by the Scottish National party, boosting the SNP’s hopes of holding them.The pro-independence Scottish Green party (SGP) said its local branches had opted not to contest North East Fife, won by the SNP by just two votes in 2017, and Perth & North Perthshire, held by the SNP with a 21-vote margin in 2017, for “various reasons”.The only way to keep the Tories out. We’ve been stopping the Tories In Perthshire since 1995 since Roseanna won the by-election. With your help we can do it again. https://t.co/qXJVYxfWaMPete Wishart describing this as standing aside is a bit cute. They’ve not stood aside for him. A large part of it is about concentrating our resources on 2021 [the Scottish parliament elections]; that’s the main reason why most of our branches have opted not to stand [this time]. 1.53pm GMT In an interview on the World at One Prof Sir John Curtice, the BBC’s lead elections expert and the person who oversees the national exit poll, said that although Nigel Farage’s decision would not make a big difference, it would probably wipe out the advantage that the Lib Dems gained from the remain alliance pact announced last week.The Brexit party is standing down in seats the Tories held in 2017. But, given the state of the opinion polls (which generally show the Tories ahead of Labour by around 10 points – a much larger margin than on election night in 2017), the Conservatives would currently expect to hold most of these anyway, Curtice said.It is here perhaps that the decision of the Brexit party to stand down might at the margin help the Conservatives because some of these seats, though by no means all of them, are ones where there was quite a substantial leave vote last time – places like North Cornwall and North Devon …Put it like this; perhaps last week, by their own alliance, the remain alliance, the Liberal Democrats might have helped themselves to pick up another half dozen seats. Those seats may have gone as a result of today’s decision.Unless, of course, that by standing down in so many seats the credibility of the Brexit party, which already seems to have seeped away quite considerably … it may just simply mean that, even though the Brexit party stands, that the Brexit party loses some of its voters, and it helps the Tories that way.We perhaps should not exaggerate how important this is. It is the Liberal Democrat/Conservative contests where the Tories might be helped out. But in the crucial Conservative/Labour ones, so far at least, Mr Farage is not offering the Conservatives any direct help. Continue reading…
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