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Nigel Farage will be returning to familiar political hunting ground this week when he stages a rally in Maidstone to urge voters to back his party at an election and put pressure on the government to deliver Brexit.
The leader of the Brexit party will be joined by the former Maidstone and Weald Conservative MP Ann Widdecombe for what will be the last in a series of large public events outside London which party managers predict will be attended by several hundred people.
Ms Widdecombe is back in frontline politics after joining the party and standing in the European elections in May, when she was elected as an MEP under her new political colours for the South West region.
Her decision to back another party led to her expulsion from the Conservatives and she also lost her honorary role as President of the Maidstone Conservative Association.
She has proved popular on the party’s regional tour and her trademark blunt speaking and uncompromising attacks on her former party have roused audiences of party activists.
Speaking ahead of the party rally, Mr Farage said he was looking forward to being in the county: "For 20 years now, I have represented this beautiful area of the country in the European Parliament.
"I am battling to give local people a voice by bringing sovereignty back to the UK through a Clean-Break Brexit, and in doing so abolish my own job.”
He urged supporters to send a message “to the Remain establishment and Westminster MPs currently blocking the South East's vote to Leave."
A recent attempt to persuade the Conservative Party to agree to an electoral pact at a general election was rebuffed
The event will be held at Kent Event Centre in Maidstone Exhibition Hall.
Meanwhile the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn survived what would have been a humiliating defeat at his conference after members backed his stance on Brexit.
The party has endorsed a strategy which rests on the pledge to remain neutral during an election campaign but to hold a second referendum should the party win power.
In that referendum the party would campaign to stay in the EU.
Some shadow cabinet members had argued that the party should cement its position as being in favour or remaining in the EU in the run-up to any election.
