The Brexit Party’s Diane James believes that a hung Parliament under the present circumstances seems like a real possibility.
Sputnik: Will the Brexit Party win many seats in Wales?
Diane James: I should think a number of people who might have been attracted to voting for Plaid Cymru could be pretty upset that supposedly there’s going to be a Remain alliance, and they may well see that in certain areas, they haven’t actually got a candidate and instead they’ve got a Liberal Democrat, for instance.
At the moment, it’s very fluid, it’s very early days, but the Brexit Party could do very well. It may not win MPs in Wales, but I think it could very easily thwart certainly leading Remain candidates, and actually give the Tories a much better chance.
Sputnik: Is a hung Parliament the likely result of the next general election?
Diane James: The chance of a hung Parliament is a very serious reality. The fact that this forthcoming general election has effectively become a referendum number two by default, and the fact that so many parties are taking positions on either Remain or Leave and people are not necessarily going to look at the small print or understand what their general election policies are, then on the basis of that it’s a very dangerous situation.
Boris Johnson is trying to break the deadlock, but I’m not necessarily convinced that this general election is going to do it.
Sputnik: Would a no-deal Brexit be better than departing under the terms stipulated by Boris Johnson’s divorce bill?
Diane James: I’ve always stood by the position that a proper, clean Brexit, as in absolutely no ties, we’ve left, there’s no half way in, half way out, there’s no hotel California moment, anything like that at all, should be the result of the referendum and should be delivered by our political establishment.
That’s referred to as a hard Brexit, and the Labour Party have even come up with their own project fear of cliff edge type stuff, but if you’re going to leave an organisation, whether it’s the pub, restaurant, the gym, your house - you actually walk out the door, you don’t stand in between, with one leg in and one leg out.
Currently the deal that Boris Johnson has got is effectively a rehash of a deal that was rejected by both Remainers and Leavers, constructed by Theresa May, and all he’s managed to alter is the Irish backstop arrangement, and I think if people could actually respect that position and understand that clarity, it could actually give them more knowledge, more justification and more rationale in terms of where they put their X on the ballot paper.