Brexit Party plans to win over Labour voters with 'cheaper food and cheaper bras', says Farage

Brexit Party leader claims leaving EU without a deal would mean 'cheaper everything' as he promises to target Leave-voting seats held by Labour MPs

Nigel Farage has vowed to win over Labour voters at the general election by promising them "cheaper food and cheaper bras".

Announcing his strategy for the 12 December poll, the Brexit Party leader said his demand for the UK to leave the EU without a deal would reduce prices of "everything from underwear to shoes to food".

He said Labour seats in Leave-voting areas would be among his party's top targets and urged the Conservatives to stand aside in constituencies that they cannot win.

Mr Farage had earlier used his campaign launch to offer to form a "Leave alliance" with Boris Johnson if the prime minister agrees to ditch his Brexit deal.

This would involve the Brexit Party standing aside in Tory marginals and the Conservatives agreeing not to field candidates in up to 150 Labour-held seats that Mr Farage is targetting.

If Mr Johnson refuses then the Brexit Party will field candidates in every seat in England, Scotland and Wales, Mr Farage said - a move that could harm the Conservatives' chances of winning a majority.

Asked by reporters how he planned to convince Labour voters to support him, he replied: "Cheaper food, cheaper bras, cheaper shoes. Cheaper everything.

"12,500 everyday household goods that we buy, everything from underwear to shoes to food, that are tariffed because of the [EU's] common external tariff and our membership of the European Union."

He dismissed suggestions that Labour voters may be concerned that his demands for the UK to leave the EU without a deal would risk weakening workers' rights and environmental protections.

He said: "It doesn't mean any of that. Either you want to be self-governing or you don't.

"I'm amazed the Labour Party don't think they're good enough to set trade union legislation for our country and that the European Commission is better placed. I don't buy that at all."

Mr Farage had earlier launched a scathing attack on both of the main political parties.

He said: "The Labour Party absolutely promised everybody during the campaign, after the campaign and even in their general election manifesto that they would honour the result of the referendum and implement it, and yet where are we now with Corbyn's Labour Party?

"They're now promising us that if they win the election, they will go to Brussels and negotiate a new deal, they will put it to us in a second referendum and it sounds like many of them would actually campaign against the deal their own government has negotiated."

He added: "They are offering a choice of Remain and, effectively, Remain. For five million Labour voters who turned out in that referendum back in June 2016 and voted to Leave, that represents nothing more than a complete and utter betrayal. It is a Labour Party that represents Islington not Islwyn, Hampstead not Huddersfield and Dalston not Doncaster."

However, he claimed that it was "nonsense" to think that traditional Labour voters would switch their support to Mr Johnson's Conservatives, and condemned the prime minister's "dreadful" Brexit deal, saying: "Boris tells us it is a great new deal. It’s not. It is a bad old treaty and, simply, it is not Brexit.”

Mr Farage said he was in discussions with Tory MPs "who don't want us to stand against them and who actually in their heart are genuine Brexiteers".

But he claimed that his party posed as much of a threat to Labour as it did to the Conservatives and suggested that Ukip, then under his leadership, had helped the Tories to win a majority in 2015.

He said: "Without me, [David] Cameron would never have got a majority. We hurt Labour much more in that election than we hurt the Conservatives, and everyone now knows it.

"Don't assume [the Brexit Party standing] will hurt the Tories more than Labour. Labour are very, very vulnerable."

Mr Farage revealed that he had already held discussions with government ministers about the prospect of a pact between his party and the Conservatives.

He urged Mr Johnson to accept his offer and claimed that "the majority of Conservative donors are horrified by the implications" of the prime minister's Brexit deal.