Nigel Farage pivots to back Boris Johnson and pour resources into Labour seats in the North

Setting out his election strategy in Hartlepool this afternoon Mr Farage went back on his previous announcement that he would put up candidates in every constituency in the country.

He said doing so would mean the Liberal Democrats made gains in the South and would lead to a hung Parliament and a second referendum.

But he said his party would concentrate all their efforts on winning Labour-held seats in the North of England, as he said the party was now “London-dominated” and was no longer representative of the working class North.

He said: "The Brexit Party will not contest the 317 seats the Conservatives won at the last election.

"But what we will do is concentrate our total effort into all the seats that are held by the Labour Party, who have completely broken their manifesto pledge in 2017 to respect the result of the referendum.

"And we will also take on the rest of the Remainer parties. We will stand up and we will fight them all."

Mr Farage said he still felt Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal did not deliver leaving the EU in the way he wished, but he had been encouraged by a video of Mr Johnson committing to not agreeing to any further extension with the EU.

And he said he had “genuinely tried for months” to form a Leave alliance.

However Mr Farage was still set to cause trouble for the Tories, who would no doubt rather have a clear shot at winning those Labour seats himself.

Mr Farage said: “I think it is also fair to say that the London-dominated Labour party is now thousands of miles away from it’s traditional safe seats many it has held since 1918 and it actually is the time for seismic change in many of these constituencies.

“I think there is a Labour audience out there waiting for that message.”

In Yorkshire Labour's most vulnerable seats are Keighley (majority 239 in 2017), Colne Valley (915 majority), Penistone and Stockbridge (1,322 majority), Sheffield Hallam (2,125 majority), Wakefield (2,176 majority), Dewsbury (3,321 majority), Great Grimsby (2,565 majority), Rother Valley (3,882 majority), Leeds North West (4,224 majority), Halifax (5,376 majority), and Don Valley (5,169 majority).

Ian Lavery, Labour Party Chairman, said: “This is a Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson alliance with Donald Trump to sell out our country and send £500m per week from our NHS to US drugs companies.

“We urge voters to reject this Thatcherite 1980s tribute act, which would lead to more savage Tory attacks on working class communities. Our NHS is not for sale."