Nigel Farage has been backed by former Conservative MP Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, as the Tory leadership hopefuls took aim at the Reform UK leader during their annual party conference.
Speaking to supporters in Birmingham, James Cleverly told GB News that Reform UK are “pale imitators” of the Conservatives, and he is out to “destroy” them.
Meanwhile, candidate Robert Jenrick outlined his plans to “retire” Farage, jibing that the Tories “could afford the bar bill” if they invited the Clacton MP to join them.
Discussing the latest row between the Conservatives and Reform UK, Jacob Rees-Mogg told GB News that it is “the fault of the Tories” and “not Reform” that they lost support in this year’s general election.
Criticising the comments made by Cleverly and Jenrick, Rees-Mogg said: “I think any Tory who thinks losing over half your votes is not a pretty serious electoral setback is in cloud cuckoo land.
“There are 89 seats in which Reform came second to Labour. What is the point in the Conservatives fighting an aggressive campaign in those seats? Surely we would rather have Reform win than Labour win?”
When quizzed by GB News host Tom Harwood on whether Rees-Mogg would “still be holding his seat” in Somerset if Reform “did not have a candidate”, the former Tory MP was undecided.
He explained: “I don’t know, but I think the important thing is to understand that the Tory party doesn’t have a right to those votes. We failed to inspire those people.
“There’s four million people who’d previously voted Conservative who didn’t vote for us in 2024. It’s our fault, not Reform’s.”
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Offering further defence of Farage, Rees-Mogg claimed that despite Conservative hopes of Reform UK “disappearing”, Farage is too much of a “formidable” politician to be going anywhere before the next general election.
Rees-Mogg told GB News: “We’ve got some years before an election, and we’ll have to see how the opinion polls go, but there are some people who think that Reform will just disappear, will evaporate, in a puff of Nigel Farage’s Marlboro Lights smoke, but I don’t think that’s likely.
“I think Nigel is such a formidable politician, you have to take him seriously. And this is now a much broader party than UKIP. It’s not a one issue party. It’s looking at immigration, it’s looking at the economy, and it’s looking crucially at net zero.”
Offering advice to the Conservatives on how they can regain support before the next election, Rees-Mogg suggested: “The Tory party needs to get a new policy on net zero, because that’s making the country cold and poor, and people voting for Reform who were Tories recognise that.
“We lost 4 million votes to Reform. We lost 2.3 million votes to those who didn’t vote, who had been Conservative, and about 700,000 who went to Lib Dems, Labour and Greens combined.
“Don’t govern by opinion polls. When you say to people, are you a good person who wants a clean planet? Of course people say yes.”
Rees-Mogg continued: “When you say to them, do you want your price of electricity to be double that in the United States, they’re less keen. And that’s where governments have to make the choices to make people better off to improve their standard living.
“The net zero green ideology is making people cold and poor, and they won’t vote for that.”
