Days to Brexit deadline: 77
Nigel Farage vows to “stand up and fight” Labour in every seat they hold.
It meant another jumpy day for the pound, which rose ahead of Farage’s appearance in Hull on Thursday before giving up those gains once he indicated that he’s not going away.
There had been speculation that the Brexit Party would stand down from closely fought seats where the Conservatives want to unseat Labour incumbents, for fear of splitting the pro-Brexit vote. No way, said Nigel. “We’re going to stand up and fight Labour in every seat in this country, be in no doubt,” he said.
The Labour party later made a splash with a pledge to deliver free full-fiber broadband for all nationwide within 10 years, thanks to a £20 billion ($26 billion) nationalization of BT Group Plc’s Openreach unit. Labour will announce the policy on Friday. BT was said to be caught off guard after earlier promises it wasn’t on the list for nationalization.
Worried BT shareholders may be relieved to hear the assessment of the U.K.’s unofficial national polling guru, Sir John Curtice, who briefed reporters yesterday on how to interpret current opinion polls. Curtice was blunt about Labour’s prospects. “The chances of Labour winning a majority are as close to zero as it is possible to be,” he said.
With a 10-point lead the Tories ought to win an overall majority, said Curtice, a professor of politics at Strathclyde University — “But that’s not a prediction,” he added. National polls won’t necessarily tell the whole story. “Because the Brexit Party are standing down in Conservative-held seats it could simply be a case of the Tories piling up more votes in the seats they are going to win anyway.”
Nevertheless, Corbyn probably won’t need a majority of his own to open a path to Downing Street — with Johnson’s Tories isolated at Westminster over Brexit, Corbyn just needs to deny the prime minister outright victory.
