Rees-Mogg takes aim at Badenoch over Reform remarks

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.