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Rishi Sunak ought to make Nigel Farage a Tory minister and permit different senior Reform UK politicians to face as Conservative candidates on the common election, a former cupboard minister has urged.
Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, a senior right-wing MP and former enterprise secretary, issued the unconventional proposal on Tuesday, insisting that uniting Britain’s proper was the Tories’ “solely probability of climbing this electoral mountain” mendacity forward.
The Conservative celebration is trailing Labour by about 20 factors in opinion polls and suffered crushing losses in native elections earlier this month.
Talking on his personal GB Information programme, Rees-Mogg argued that the prime minister may shut that hole with a “massive, open and complete provide to these in Reform”, in a transfer designed to consolidate the right-wing voting bloc within the UK.
Sunak “ought to provide candidate choice to senior members of the Reform celebration”, together with its honorary president Farage, its chief Richard Tice and its deputy chief Ben Habib, Rees-Mogg stated.
He went additional, calling on the prime minister to enlist the “assist of Nigel Farage in a Conservative authorities as a Conservative minister, with Boris Johnson in all probability returning as international secretary . . . in addition to pursuing genuinely Conservative insurance policies”. Such strikes would put a Tory victory within the common election, anticipated later this yr, “inside attain”, Rees-Mogg stated.
He highlighted a survey printed by The Solar earlier this week which indicated that Reform would attain 16 per cent within the polls if Farage, a high-profile champion of Brexit, made a political comeback to the forefront of the celebration. At current, Farage is a fellow broadcaster on GB Information, away from frontline politics.
The identical ballot put the Tories on 21 per cent. “When placing these percentages collectively, it will get us to 37 per cent to Labour’s 41 [per cent],” Rees-Mogg stated. He acknowledged that his argument was an oversimplified technique, however insisted it could ship “a transparent message to the voters of unity of goal” among the many British proper.
The Tory MP identified that, in 2010, his celebration had been prepared to enter a coalition with the Liberal Democrats who have been “hardly our soulmates”, whereas, in distinction, “most members of Reform should not 1,000,000 miles away from most Conservative voters and members politically”.
The Lib Dems seized on his remarks, declaring that Sunak ought to droop the whip from Rees-Mogg. Daisy Cooper, the celebration’s deputy chief, stated the Tory celebration was a “shambolic mess”, including that its MPs have been in “open revolt”.
“If the prime minister had any bottle he would droop the whip from Rees-Mogg and rule out Nigel Farage being allowed into the Conservative celebration,” she stated.
Rees-Mogg’s intervention provoked a derisive response from another Tories. One centrist labelled it “moronic” and one other former minister referred to as it “completely thick”.
Nevertheless, some MPs on the Conservative proper have indicated they’d assist Farage coming again to the fold. Final week Robert Jenrick, a former immigration minister, informed LBC: “I might not oppose Nigel Farage coming again into the celebration.”
Up to now Rees-Mogg referred to as for an electoral pact between the Tories and Ukip, the pro-Brexit celebration that Farage beforehand led.
The Conservative celebration was contacted for remark.
