The rise and rise of Nigel Farage

There has been talk in recent weeks of Nigel Farage suddeny becoming a nice sensilbe politician with his apparent offer to the Conservatives to stand aside in certain constituencies to make sure the Tory candidate in each case has a better chance of winning rather than being faced with a strong Brexit Party candidate. But oh no, there's a huge quid pro quo, that lovely phrase which now seems part of the international political woodwork (see Trump/Ukrainegate's quid pro quo). Farage has told Boris today that he must drop his Brexit deal altogether in return for the Brexit Party stepping aside in some constituencies. Farage of course wants to crash out of the EU with no deal because, even though he enjoyed a nice fat salary and huge expenses for years as a member of the European Parliament, he wants Britain out of the EU full stop, with no concessions, no nothing. It's not an unexpected bit of blackmail but pretty outrageous. Farage has no parliamentary representation and yet he believes if he fields candidates in all constituencies he is going to end up with an avalanche of MPs in the Commons. Thus his ultimatum to Boris, drop the Brexit deal. The Boris deal is considerably harder in terms of eliminating links to the EU than Theresa May's version which included sticking with the customs union. But it's not good enough for our Nigel. And we are only in the first day or so of the election campaign. It is truly going to be a monstrously awful next six weeks. Boris can't possibly throw away his deal after winning plaudits for changing the EU's position vis a vis Theresa May's version. So I assume he will tell Farage to get st**fed. But that means there will be a full confrontation between Tory and Brexit Party candidates in every constituency which maybe will be good news for Labour, certainly not good news for Boris. How many blackmail scenarios will Boris have to face? The Northern Ireland Democratic Unionist Party of course will be plotting to get what they want from Brexit, never mind Boris's deal. All terrible news for us all. The end result? A hung parliament with no winners and Brexit back to square one!!!