Revealed: why Nigel Farage is distancing himself from Arron Banks

Nigel Farage appears to have u-turned about backing one Brexit campaign. At the party’s recent conference in Doncaster, the Ukip leader said he would be standing ‘hand in hand’ with Arron Banks and his Leave.EU group. But on the Sunday Politics yesterday, he gave equal weighting to Vote Leave, the other Brexit effort which launched on Thursday evening out of the Business for Britain campaign group:

‘I support both of them. I listened to what Vote Leave had to say last week. They’re a Westminster based group, making business arguments. Arguing, as I’ve done in this interview, for us to be free to make our own trade deals. That is of value.

‘Leave.EU is an entirely different thing, aiming at a completely different audience.  They are talking about our ability to control our country, the ability to control our borders and they’re reaching out to millions of ordinary people, employing business techniques, the likes of which have never been seen in British politics, and they’ve signed up over 200,000 people in the first 8 weeks of their existence.