Reform UK leader Nigel Farage pronounced that the Tory brand is “completely broken” as the so-called Conservative Party leadership contest goes into full swing this week.
The interminable 14-week Conservative Party leadership race to replace failed PM Rishi Sunak will see the final four contenders head to Birmingham as the party holds its annual conference.
The contest, which has failed to generate much interest among the public, will see anti-woke former equalities minister Kemi Badenoch, arch-centrist ex-Home Secretary James Cleverly, faux-hardliner former immigration minister Robert Jenrick, and neo-con MP Tom Tugendhat make their main pitches to party members, who will whittle down the field to two candidates this week before a final decision is made in November.
Still reeling from the electoral debacle, which saw the main British establishment political party lose a staggering 251 seats and cede power to the feckless Labour Party, the Conservatives remain without a cohesive vision for the future, with the party being split between neo-liberal “One Nation” Tories like Tugendhat, establishment figures like Cleverly, and Badenoch and Jenrick battling for control of the supposed right of the party.
Commenting on the leadership race, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage remarked: “The Conservative Party is split down the middle and the brand is completely broken.”
The Brexit boss, who is seeking to leapfrog the Tories and lead his party to defeat Labour in the next election, kept his focus to the two candidates seemingly fighting for the conservative wing of the party, Badenoch and Jenrick.
“Kemi Badenoch has spent weeks positioning herself as tough on immigration.But in 2018 she campaigned in Parliament to increase legal migration, and was the biggest champion for students bringing in dependents. I don’t believe a word that she says on anything,” Farage declared.
Turning his ire on the former immigration minister, Farage accused Jenrick of being a man who “believed in nothing” but now attempts to cast himself as “the great hardliner”.
“This is almost certainly done for political gain and not out of conviction. He will divide the party,” the Reform leader predicted. “I doubt that Jenrick will last long if he wins.”
Recently-installed Reform UK chairman Zia Yusuf echoed a similar sentiment over the weekend, telling GB News that the Conservative Party is on its way to being “consigned to the history books”.
“The Tories are done, the British people now see the Tory party for what they are, which is a party that will say absolutely anything to get themselves elected and then do the complete opposite when they come into power.”
“People at home listening to these Tory leadership hopefuls must be shaking their heads in disbelief at how shameless it is. They promised in manifesto after manifesto to bring net migration down to the tens of thousands [but] left office having exploded the size of the population with that number at three quarters of a million.”
Yusuf also noted that the previous government presided over the imposition of the highest tax burden since the Second World War, allowed knife crime to run rampant, and permitted “wokery” to spread throughout major British institutions, particularly in the civil service.
Responding to attempts by the candidates to distance themselves from their own party’s history, the Reform chairman quipped: “I’m amazed, frankly, that they’re able to say these things with a straight face.”
