It’s day three of the Conservative party conference, and so far the blue-on-blue has been kept to a minimum — not least thanks to the ‘yellow card’ threat, Mr S is sure. But one Tory grandee and former MP isn’t holding back on his thoughts on the future of his party following a disastrous election result — and Jacob Rees-Mogg had some firm words for Kemi Badenoch in particular…
In conversation with the Telegraph’s Daily T podcast this morning, Rees-Mogg first criticised the four leadership contenders for not focusing enough on issues like net zero or the economy, before slamming his party’s ’appalling failure’ on immigration over the last 14 years. ‘We promised tens of thousands in the 2010 manifesto, which we knew was a lie actually,’ he told his audience, ‘because we knew we had no control over EU migration.’ He went on:
We had 1.4 million people net come in in the two years to June 2023. We can say the most wonderful things and people will think Nigel [Farage] will do it properly and we won’t because we’ve failed before. So I don’t think trying to steal our clothes back from Reform is likely to work. We need to show we are changing by recognising that Reform is real and trying to bring them into a tent. That may mean that some people may leave the tent in the other direction, but that is something we must accept because we are the Conservative party, and not the Liberal Democrat mark two party.
Strong stuff. Then he turned his guns on Badenoch, after her remarks on Tuesday that Reform’s leadership are not ‘real conservatives’ or ‘serious people’. ‘It’s a mistake to dismiss him,’ Rees-Mogg fumed. ‘I think to say Nigel Farage is not a serious politician ignores the evidence. We would not have had Brexit without Nigel.’ Continuing his tirade, the ex-Tory MP insisted:
Without the success he made of the UK Independence party, of the Brexit party, of pushing us down to our lowest share of the vote in the 2019 European elections in our history, going back to Queen Anne, our worst result ever. We would not have got the referendum in the first place – which David Cameron offered to neutralise Ukip, to neutralise Nigel – we would not have won the referendum because we would not have appealed to the Labour voters who eventually came over to us, who Nigel appealed to.
He hasn’t done it just because he swigs beer and smokes fags. He’s done it because he is a formidable figure.
That’s her told…
Farage may not be at Tory conference himself this year to defend his name, but evidently Rees-Mogg has that covered…
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