London’s Metropolitan Police says it is assessing two allegations of “fraud and malpractice” in relation to the UK election, amid claims Conservative Party figures offered seats in the House of Lords to Brexit Party election candidates to persuade them to stand down.
The claims were made by Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage on Thursday, after he had announced his party would not field candidates at the December election in any of the 317 seats currently held by the Conservatives, to avoid splitting the pro-Brexit vote.
In a video posted on Twitter, Farage said he was offered a peerage if he were to “go quietly” at the election. He said when that failed eight of his Brexit Party candidates were also offered seats in the House of Lords, the UK parliament’s upper chamber, if they could convince the party’s leadership to stand down in marginal constituencies.
The former UKIP leader went on to say that the offer to his party’s candidates came from “people who work deep inside Number 10 Downing Street,” but added that he did not believe Prime Minister Boris Johnson was involved.
In a statement, the Met Police said: “The MPS has received two allegations of electoral fraud and malpractice in relation to the 2019 General Election. The MPS Special Enquiry Team is responsible for investigating all such criminal allegations. Both allegations are currently being assessed.”
In a speech in Hartlepool, northern England, last week, when announcing his party would not challenge Tory seats, Farage said that the Brexit Party would “take the fight” to “the Labour Party and the rest of the remainer parties.”
It has been widely reported by the UK media that Labour Party peer Lord Falconer has written to the Met police commissioner and director of public prosecutions calling for an investigation into what he said were “exceptionally serious allegations.” In the letter, Lord Falconer wrote that the allegations “raise serious questions” about the integrity of the December 12 election.
On Friday, in a BBC interview, Prime Minister Johnson described Farage’s claims as “nonsense,” and denied there had been any offers of peerages.
“I am sure there are conversations that take place between politicians of all parties but certainly nobody’s been offered a peerage,” he told BBC Radio 5 live.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the Conservative Party said: “Neither the Conservative party, nor its officials have offered Brexit Party candidates jobs or peerages.
“We don’t do electoral pacts – our pact is with the British people. The only way to get Brexit done and unleash Britain’s potential is to vote for your local Conservative candidate, otherwise the country runs the risk of another deadlocked parliament, or even worse a Labour/SNP coalition led by Jeremy Corbyn who would subject Britain to two referendums in 2020.”