Conservative leadership hopeful says many who voted for Farage’s party were ‘lifelong Tory voters’
Fair taxes on superyachts and private jets in the UK could have brought in £2bn last year to provide vital funds for communities suffering the worst effects of climate breakdown, environmental campaigners say. Sandra Laville has the story.
In his interview with the BBC, John Major, the former Conservative PM, says that it would be a mistake for his party to chase Reform UK voters and move to the right as it works out how to respond to its election defeat. (See 9.26am.) But Kemi Badenoch, the leadership candidate most popular with party members according to most surveys, is saying exactly the opposite. In an interview with GB News she said that Reform UK supporters were “our people”.
I think one of the mistakes we made was making Reform voters think that they were not our people. They are our people. Many of the people who voted Reform were lifelong Tory voters.
One of the moments that really created that impression was when we removed the whip from Lee Anderson. I think that was a mistake.
I don’t think he’s a Conservative, and he’s spent most of his time in the last few years telling people how much he dislikes the Conservative Party and would like to destroy it. I don’t think that’s a terribly good background for bringing someone into the party.
I think that he is a disruptor. But he has said that he wants to destroy the Conservative party, so I think that’s probably a no.
