Nigel Farage, leader of the Brexit Party, fighting the European elections on May 23, says he would be make supporting Britain’s small businesses his number one priority if elected into government.
When asked about his priorities on the BBC’s The Andrew Marr Show, Farage said: “… particularly 5.4 million people out there acting as sole traders running small businesses and there’s nobody in government on their side. Let’s make their lives easier – they create more jobs, pay more taxes and it would be good for our country”
Asked if he wanted to become prime minister, Farage shrugged, “No, not particularly.”
However, the Brexit Party would become the second-biggest party in Britain if a snap general election was called tomorrow, according to a Comres survey in the Sunday Telegraph. Farage’s new party could win 20pc of the vote share and 49 seats, nudging ahead of the Conservatives on 19pc and Labour on 27pc.
And the Brexit Party is polling higher than the two major parties combined ahead of this month’s European election. Farage’s insurgent party is on course to get 34pc of the votes, according to an Opinium poll for the Observer; Labour are on 21pc and the pro-EU Liberal Democrats in third place on 12pc. The Conservatives face an electoral drubbing on May 23 with just 11pc of the votes.
Brexit uncertainty has damaged small businesses after nearly three years of negotiations and equivocation, according to research by small business insurer Simply Business.
Over a third of business owners (35%) have delayed growth plans and investment in their SMEs, citing Brexit uncertainty as making it difficult to plan ahead. Eight per cent say they are already making redundancies to cut costs, double the percentage of SMEs looking to hire new staff. And nearly one third (31 per cent) claim to have felt negative impact even before the UK has officially left the European Union.
