It was an astonishing result for a fledgeling party launched less than four months ago and a remarkable return to the political front line for the former Ukip leader. Tory MPs suspect last night’s Brexit Party vote surge will give a boost to Boris Johnson and other Brexiteers in the race to replace Theresa May as leader. Senior Tories were left reeling by the humiliating rebuff by voters following months of Brexit stalemate at Westminster and failure to leave the EU on schedule on March 29. Labour was also counting the cost of Jeremy Corbyn’s Brexit dithering after slumping in the poll. And with Brussels negotiations set to be put on hold for months, the new prime minister has little time left for fresh talks before the UK is due to leave the bloc on October 31.

Late last night, a poll based on a sample of postal votes appeared to confirm a landslide victory for the Brexit Party.

It showed the party picking up more than a third of votes, 34 percent, compared with 22 percent for Labour and just 12 percent for the Conservatives.

The Brexit Party saw early victories in both cities and rural constituencies.

It came top in Leeds – which voted Remain – with 53,600 votes with Labour second on 36,377 and the Lib Dems with 34,076.

The Tories came fifth.

In Sunderland, the Brexit Party took nearly half the vote while in Chelmsford, it picked up 40 percent of the vote.

In Wiltshire, where the Tories was the largest party in the 2014 European election and which voted Leave in the 2016 referendum the Brexit Party picked up 56,613 votes with the Liberal Democrats second on 39,811.

The Tories came fourth.

Labour was haemorrhaging votes to the Brexit Party, Liberal Democrats and Greens, with a suggestion it could come fifth in its traditional Wales heartland.

Brexiteer Tory MP Peter Bone said: “The results of the European election make it clear a no-deal Brexit is what many voters are looking for.”

Backbencher Andrew Bridgen said: “These results demonstrate that the British people’s appetite for Brexit is undiminished. Whoever is elected as the next Conservative leader must deliver it to ensure the future of our democracy, our country and our party.”

Even before the results were declared last night, top Tories were clashing angrily over the prospects of a no-deal Brexit.

In an incendiary intervention, Chancellor Philip Hammond yesterday warned he might help topple a government intent on exiting the EU without a deal.

“I would certainly not support a strategy to take us out with no deal,” he told BBC One’s Andrew Marr Show.

Mr Hammond said talk of a renegotiation before the end of October was a “fig leaf for a policy of leaving on no-deal terms” due to the summer break and no new EU commission until autumn.

He said: “That policy has a major flaw in it… and that is that Parliament has voted very clearly to oppose a no-deal exit. A prime minister who ignores Parliament cannot expect to survive very long.”

Former EU exit secretary and Tory leadership contender Dominic Raab yesterday insisted that he would be ready to walk away without a deal.

He said the Government should withhold £25billion of the agreed £39billion Brexit divorce fee if Brussels refused to give concessions.

“I would fight for a fairer deal in Brussels with negotiations to change the backstop arrangements, and if not I would be clear that we would leave on [World Trade Organisation] terms in October,” he said.

“We need to go out and be absolutely resolute in the way we weren’t last time.

“I think unless you’re willing to keep our promises as politicians, if we’re not willing to say that, I think we put ourselves in a much weaker position in terms of getting a deal.

“If you’re not willing to walk away from the negotiation it doesn’t focus the mind of the other side.”

Another Tory leadership contender, ex-Cabinet minister Esther McVey, said the Government must start preparing for a no-deal exit straight away.

“October 31 is the key date and we are coming out then, and if that means without a deal then that’s what it means,” she said. “We won’t be asking for any more extensions.”

Meanwhile, Mr Hammond’s parliamentary aide risked inflaming the Tory Brexit war by claiming a second EU referendum was “inevitable”.

Huw Merriman said yesterday: “We’ve seen a majority of MPs continue to vote for nothing. No majority for anything, which means we can either carry on in this vein or be realistic and say we’re going to have to put this back to the people to make a decision.”

Labour shadow chancellor John McDonnell insisted that the opposition would seek to unite with pro-Brussels Tories to block a no-deal exit.

He said: “We can’t allow that to happen.

“We’ve got to move forward now, bring people together and block a no deal and if that means going back to the people, so be it. There is a real threat now of an extremist Brexiteer becoming the leader of the Conservative Party and taking us over the edge.”

UK voters elected 73 MEPs to sit in the European Parliament in the Thursday’s polls.

Counting was delayed until the close of polls in some EU member nations which held their elections yesterday.

The election, which will cost taxpayers more than £150million, went ahead because of the UK’s failure to leave the EU in March.

Mr Corbyn is understood to be braced for fresh demands from pro-Brussels Labour MPs for the party to be unequivocally committed to a second EU referendum.

Source: Read Full Article