Brexit Party founder forced to resign over Islamophobic comments endorses Boris Johnson's Tories

'Catherine joins a long list of unsavoury characters,' say Lib Dems.

Brexit Party founder Catherine Blaiklock who resigned from the party after posting a series of anti-Islam comments has backed Boris Johnson’s Conservatives.

Ms Blaiklock, who set up the party and registered its name, accused Nigel Farage of going on a “monumental ego trip” and said his general election strategy had been a “disaster”.

“Nigel has failed catastrophically,” she told The Sun newspaper. “You have to compromise. If you want Brexit, you must vote Tory."

But opposition parties at Westminster seized on the endorsement, and the Liberal Democrat deputy leader Ed Davey said: “Catherine joins a long list of unsavoury characters, including Tommy Robinson, who are now backing Boris Johnson.”

He added: “The fact that Sir John Major, Michael Heseltine and others are urging voters to keep the Tories out of power shows quite how far this Conservative party has sunk.”

Ms Blaiklock resigned from the Brexit Party earlier this year after a series of anti-Islam messages were uncovered by the Hope Not Hate organisation, which monitors the the far-right.

According to The Guardian, one of the messages shared by Ms Blaiklock was from a former BNP acivtist which referred to “white genocide” while one of her own remarks read: “Islam = submission – mostly raping men it seems”.

At the time, she told the newspaper: “The out of character comments that I made on social media some time ago were unacceptable in tone and content. After speaking to Nigel Farage, I realise that my comments fall well short of what is expected in any walk of life. I have accordingly tendered my resignation as party leader."

In recent days, Ms Blaiklock has also retweeted false claims after a picture of a child with pneumonia being forced to lie on the floor of an NHS hospital in Leeds due to no beds being available went viral.

One tweet said “mass immigration” to the UK had resulted in “towns and cities that look like foreign countries”, while another added: “Monkey pox. Ebola. TB. Wild forest meats. FGM. Burkas. Halal. Some of the joys of multiculturalism”.

Responding to her endorsement of the Tories, the Labour Party chairman, Ian Lavery, added: “The Tories are backed by the likes of Tommy Robinson and Tory candidates that have spread the far-right conspiracy theory that the photo of four-year-old Jack Williment-Barr was a hoax."

A Brexit Party spokesperson said: “Shocking story of Tory says vote Tory. I thought it was very odd – she was thrown out of the party for a collective of isms”.

The Independent has contacted the Conservatives and Ms Blaiklock for comment.