Leading Tories condemn Nigel Farage’s defence of Putin’s war | General election 2024

Rishi Sunak and a number of senior Conservatives have condemned Nigel Farage for claiming the West provoked Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, amid a deepening row within the Tories over how to deal with the Reform Party UK leader.

The Prime Minister accused Farage of “playing into Putin’s hands” after he made the claim in a BBC interview. panorama Interview on Friday in which he linked NATO and EU expansion to the conflict in Eastern Europe. Tom Tugendhat, the security minister, went even further and told the observer: “It doesn’t matter if you are Jeremy Corbyn or Nigel Farage – if you parrot the Kremlin’s lies, we cannot trust you with our national security.”

Home Secretary James Cleverly also criticised the comments, adding that Farage wanted to “destroy our party”. Ben Wallace, a former defence secretary, called Farage a “pub bore”. Labour leader Keir Starmer also condemned Farage’s comments as “disgraceful”.

The Tories are desperately trying to avert the enormous threat that Reform UK poses to them. In some scenarios, their seats in the next Parliament could be reduced to under 100. The latest Opinium poll for the observer Labour has a 20 percentage point lead over the Tories, leaving Reform just four percentage points behind the Conservatives, with 16% of the vote.

“There is still a clear divide between the Conservatives and the Reform Party, but Rishi Sunak will be wary of the fact that a quarter of Tory voters supported Nigel Farage’s party in 2019,” said James Crouch, head of policy and public affairs at Opinium.

The liberal wing of the Conservatives also took up Farage’s comments. They fear that figures on the right of the party could encourage him to join the Tories after the election. “This comment is very revealing and shows that the mask is falling,” said Damian Green, leader of the One Nation faction. “Showing sympathy for a murderous tyrant who has killed hundreds of thousands of his own people is not the attitude of a democratic, middle-class politician.”

There is a deep divide among the Tories over Farage – part of a wider dispute over the direction of the party that is likely to erupt openly as soon as the campaign ends. Some senior Conservatives fear the party could split in two, particularly if a new leader opens the door for Farage to join. One former Cabinet minister said he now feared “a rift” after the election.

Liberal Tories are concerned that in the heat of the election, the frontrunners may feel compelled to let Farage in to appease party members. The moderate Tories have largely kept a low profile during the campaign while the Conservatives have focused on immigration to unite right-wing voters. This tactic has been brutally undermined by Farage’s re-emergence as leader of Reform UK.

Moderate MPs say they have focused on limiting the damage from local campaigning and have tried to keep the party as centre-right as possible. They have also studied what the party might look like after the election based on current polls and are confident that “regardless of the outcome” the party can be stopped from moving to the right in opposition.

Some senior politicians are particularly concerned about the party’s lack of appeal to young voters, which was already apparent but may have been exacerbated by policies such as the reintroduction of national service designed to appeal to older voters considering a vote for Reform UK.

With less than two weeks to go until election day, the party’s campaign morale has also suffered a serious blow for two reasons. Firstly, the revelations that three people linked to the Conservatives are under investigation by the Gambling Commission for alleged betting related to the election date have caused great excitement.

As candidates brace for further revelations, Sunak has refused to reveal how many Tories are being investigated. The party has said it will “make no running comment”, but in the crucial final weeks of the campaign, ministers and candidates have been questioned about the investigation. Sunak has said anyone found to have broken the rules “will not only face the full consequences of the law, but will also see themselves expelled from the Conservative Party”.

The second issue that dented morale was the reallocation of resources at Conservative campaign headquarters to defend safe seats that recent polls now seem to suggest are marginal. This has led to some internal concerns about abandoning large parts of the so-called red wall that Boris Johnson won in 2019, although the party denies this accusation.

Money is also said to be an issue. Some Tory candidates have said they are struggling to get money, while some regular donors have decided to sit out the 2024 election. A fundraising event at the exclusive Hurlingham Club in London last week took place without the Prime Minister, who sent a video message instead. The star of the evening was Business Minister Kemi Badenoch, who is considered the favorite to become party leader if the Tories suffer defeat. Several major donors attended the event.