Tory party members have taken aim at Rishi Sunak in a private Facebook group following Nigel Farage‘s return to frontline politics, leaked messages have revealed.
A sitting Conservative councillor stated that Reform’s leader is a “vote winner with a big personality [and] people like what he says”.
They warned that the Prime Minister “will always be seen as the Tory who stabbed Boris in the back”.
The Conservatives Party Members Group, a private group for paying members that requires a membership number to enter, has 3,000 Conservatives including former MPs Andrew Rosindell, Joy Morrisey, John Pensorse and Virginia Crosby.
Members of the group welcomed Mr Farage’s decision to stand as a candidate in Clacton by calling him ““a darn sight more conservative than many masquerading under the Tory banner”.
Another comment expressed anger at the party having “disenfranchised millions of voters who supported them in 2019”.
In 2019, Mr Farage ditched plans to take on the Tories in more than 300 seats won by the Tories at the previous election in 2017.
But he bowed to pressure not to split the pro-Brexit vote.
Mr Farage decided to run as a candidate this year – and not strike a deal with the Tories – after accusing the Conservtives of betraying his party.
A member described Mr Farage’s decision to stand as “catastrophic”, with another adding that this announcement meant “annihilation”.
One member stated that Conservative voters who will vote Reform in July feel “badly let down by this Conservative Government”.
They added that “it is no good Sunak coming out with a new policy everyday […] anyone of average intelligence (spads excepted) will ask why they weren’t introduced years before?”.
Since launching the general election campaign from a rain-soaked Downing Street, Mr Sunak has announced policies on national service, pensions and gender.
Meanwhile Chancellor Jeremy Hunt warned tonight the Conservatives that elections are won from the centre ground following concerns the party could lurch to the right in response to Mr Farage’s candidacy.
The Chancellor suggested the party must remain a “broad church”.
Mr Hunt admitted it would be “very difficult” for the Conservatives to win on their current trajectory, but suggested it would not have made any difference if Mr Sunak had waited until the autumn to name the date.
Asked whether the Tories should pitch to the right in response to the threat from Reform, Hunt replied: “The evidence of Britain is that elections are always won from the centre ground and I think in a two-party system that will always be the case.”
He added: “We’ll always be a broad church and I think that’s a good thing.”
