Nigel Farage’s ego was the only thing stopping him standing for election as a Conservative after Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal, a Tory MP has said.
The Reform leader started his political career with the Conservatives in the 1970s but left in 1992 after the UK government signed the treaty that formed the European Union.
As his political star has risen through his years in Ukip and the Brexit Party, Tory MPs have speculated that he might return and hand the party a boost.
Gareth Bacon, the shadow minister for London, said a prime opportunity came in 2019 when Johnson pushed through a deal that would get Britain out of the Union.
Speaking on a panel at the Tory conference in Birmingham, he argued: ‘Nigel could easily have joined the Conservative Party once Brexit had been done in 2019.
‘He could have become a Conservative member of parliament, but had he tried to do that, he would have had to do it in a much more anonymised way than he’s become used to.
‘Nigel likes the limelight, he likes to set the agenda, and he can do that in the platform that he now has.
‘Joining the Conservative Party would mean he had to rein himself in a little bit, and I’m not sure he’s prepared to do that.’
Farage remains one of the most popular politicians in the country – though also one of the most divisive – and his decision to return as leader of Reform during the General Election campaign is credited with giving the party a huge boost.
Its candidates received more than four million votes altogether, placing Reform third in total vote share after Labour and the Conservatives.
However, that success only returned five MPs, including Farage. The main effect of the pro-Reform wave was a huge blow to support of larger parties – particularly the Tories.
At the conference panel, Bacon said the Conservatives had ended up with fewer MPs than they might have done after the election ‘because of the ego of Nigel Farage’.
Marco Longhi, a Tory who lost his Dudley seat to Labour at the election after Reform picked up more than 9,400 votes, said he had to question Farage’s ‘commitment to Brexit’ following Labour’s victory with a huge majority.
He suggested the former Ukip leader ‘knew full well’ what he was doing by running Reform candidates in seats across the country, and as a result, Keir Starmer’s government has control over the UK’s future relationship with the EU.
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