SPECULATION HAS BEEN rife this morning that the former UKIP leader Nigel Farage could be about to join the DUP – but the prominent Brexiteer has denied the claims.
Farage is currently on a trip to Northern Ireland where he’ll be the guest speaker at a local DUP event in Co Antrim.
The DUP has said that Farage has said “this trip is not about joining the DUP”.
The speculation began this morning after a close friend of Farage refused to rule out that both men could join the party.
Millionaire Arron Banks said during an interview with Sky News: “All things are possible in politics. We’ve seen [Donald] Trump, we’ve seen all manner of things.
I would discount nothing, I would include nothing.
It gave rise to speculation that the former UKIP leader would join the DUP, who are currently in a government partnership with Theresa May’s Conservatives.
After the Sky interview, Farage tweeted this out just before 11am:
Happy to be on my way to Northern Ireland having worked with the DUP in the referendum.
I was elected as a UKIP MEP. I lead the EFDD group in Europarl and none of that is going to change!
Farage has continued to deny the speculation; when asked whether there was any truth to the claims he’d join the DUP by a journalist in Belfast, he’s reported to have replied: “None”.
The possibility has also been compared to a similar move by Enoch Powell, a Tory health minister in the UK from 1960-1963, who returned to the House of Commons as an Ulster Unionist Party MP in 1974.
To be a member of the DUP, the candidate would have to reside in Northern Ireland (which Powell did during the ’70s to confirm his membership).
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