NIGEL Farage has abandoned plans for the Brexit Party to contest more than 600 candidates in the General Election.
Speaking to supporters at the Best Western Grand Hotel, in Hartlepool, he said the party would not stand in the 317 seats won by the Conservatives in the last election in 2017.
He said he had taken the decision because he feared that if they had run it would have led to a hung Parliament with significant gains for the Liberal Democrats.
Supporters in the room have backed Mr Farage's announcement calling him a "good strategist".
The move is a significant boost for Boris Johnson amid warnings by Conservative ministers that they risked splitting the Brexit vote.
Mr Farage said he would be focusing the Brexit Party's efforts on Labour-held seats.
"I will tell you now exactly what we are going to do," he told supporters in Hartlepool.
"The Brexit Party will not contest the 317 seats the Conservatives won at the last election.
"But what we will do is concentrate our total effort into all the seats that are held by the Labour Party, who have completely broken their manifesto pledge in 2017 to respect the result of the referendum.
"And we will also take on the rest of the Remainer parties. We will stand up and we will fight them all."
Mr Farage said the Prime Minister's move towards a free trade deal with the European Union that did not include regulatory alignment was a "significant change" to the approach on Brexit.
"He said we would negotiate a super Canada-plus trade deal with no political alignment," said the Brexit Party leader.
"That is a huge change. Ever since Mrs May's abject speech in Florence, we have been aiming at a close and special partnership with the European Union.
"We had been aiming to stay part of many of its agencies.
"Boris last night signalled a very clear change in direction. I thought to myself overnight, 'That sounds a bit more like the Brexit we voted for'."
Labour election candidate and former minister David Lammy tweeted: "Nigel Farage bottling it by standing down in Tory seats shows how vital it is for Remainers to cooperate.
"We cannot allow this hard right alliance between Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage - dancing to the tune of Donald Trump - to permanently wreck our country."
Mr Farage said he still wants to see Brexit Party MPs elected to hold Mr Johnson to account if he wins a majority.
He added: "It's not easy, but how do we hold Boris to his promises? That's the key to this isn't it? That's the key to whether this strategy actually works."
He continued: "The way we keep Boris Johnson to his promises is we have to start to win some of these seats. That's what we need to do in this election.
"Because when we do that and we have a Brexit Party voice in Parliament, we're going to keep saying 'remember, you told us we were leaving by the end of 2020. Remember you told us we're not going to have political alignment'.
"And actually he'll know, just as Mrs May's vote disappeared in the European elections of this year, the same will happen again if a British prime minister breaks firm commitments."
Responding to Mr Farage's decision, Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson tweeted: "The Conservative Party are the Brexit Party now."
Mr Farage added: "Last night I weighed up Boris' promises and is he going to stick to them against the threat particularly in the South and the South West that we let in a lot of Remainer Liberal Democrat MPs."
He said the election of a majority of pro-EU MPs was likely to lead to a second referendum that would offer the country a "false choice" of the Withdrawal Agreement and Remain.
The anti-EU campaigner said the decision had "not been easy" after fighting to "be free of the EU" for 25 years but he had made the move after his attempts at building a so-called Leave Alliance had failed.
Mr Farage continued: "I think our action, this announcement today, prevents a second referendum from happening.
"And that to me, I think right now, is the single most important thing in our country.
"So in a sense we now have a Leave alliance, it's just that we've done it unilaterally.
"We've decided ourselves that we absolutely have to put country before party and take the fight to Labour."
Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon tweeted: "Any form of Brexit that is acceptable to Nigel Farage will be deeply damaging for Scotland.
"Makes it all the more important to get rid of Boris Johnson's Tories, escape Brexit and put Scotland's future into Scotland's hands."
Naomi Smith, the chief executive of pro-EU campaign group Best for Britain, accused Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage of having "bottled it" and intensified calls for Remainers to vote tactically.
"Farage has bottled it and hung most of his own candidates out to dry," she said.
"But by standing down Brexit Party candidates across the country, it's now more important than ever that Remainers use their votes wisely.
"Our best chance of stopping a nightmarish government delivering a hard and damaging Brexit is voting tactically."
Brexit Party supporter Rachel Swann, 48, of Redcar said: "It would be great to see him contesting every seat but this is logical, a lot of people are concerned we are splitting the Leave vote.
"He is a good strategist, it's one I can live with."
Ian Lavery, The Labour Party's chair, said the Brexit Party's decision to stand down candidates in Conservative-held seats was part of a bid to satisfy US President Donald Trump and privatise parts of the NHS.
He said: "This is a Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson alliance with Donald Trump to sell out our country and send £500 million per week from our NHS to US drugs companies.
"We urge voters to reject this Thatcherite 1980s tribute act, which would lead to more savage Tory attacks on working class communities. Our NHS is not for sale."
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