Nigel Farage, the leader of Britain’s upstart Brexit Party, said on Sunday he would not stand in the next month’s election, choosing instead to campaign countywide against Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s EU divorce deal.

“I have thought very hard about this: How do I serve the cause of Brexit best?” he told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show.

“Do I find a seat and try to get myself into parliament or do I serve the cause better traversing the length and breadth of the United Kingdom supporting 600 candidates, and I’ve decided the latter course is the right one.”

Farage, an anti-EU campaigner who has stood for parliament unsuccessfully seven times, set up the Brexit Party this year and swiftly won the most votes in Britain in European elections in May.

His announcement this week that the party would contest every seat on Dec. 12 was seen as a potential setback for Johnson.

It risks splitting the vote of Brexit supporters in an election that will once again pit those who want to leave the European Union against those who want to stay, more than three years after Britain voted to quit the bloc in a referendum.

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