Lord Frost has called for the Tories to “stop rubbishing” Nigel Farage’s Reform UK. The former Brexit negotiator made the comment as he set out how the Conservatives can return to power.
Speaking at a fringe event at the Tory conference on the future of the right of British politics, Lord Frost said: “We need to create a proper mainstream Conservative Party which means moving to the right on policy and trying to appeal to some extent to our left on grounds of competence, difficult though that’s going to be, and to an extent on self-interest.
“First of all, we have to not just apologise, we have to be clear about what the margins of the party are. What are the boundaries of being in the Conservative Party and what does conservatism mean? And if you don’t like that then you can’t be in the party. That is the test for membership.
“Second, set out a conservative programme. Nationhood, rebuilding the institutions of the country, getting control of the borders, market reform, getting the size of the state down.
“Third, communication. We’ve really got to explain what we’re doing much better than we are.
“Fourth, I know this may be unpopular here but we need to stop rubbishing Reform or at least stop rubbishing people who vote for Reform. We too often look to the country like we’ve got some sort of right to votes on the right, we look entitled.
“Largely people who vote for Reform are conservatives, they’re on the right. If we want to rebuild the right we aren’t going to do it by rubbishing them, we need to rebuild and reach out. I’m not convinced any of these things are actually going to be done I’m afraid which is a reason why I’m rather negative.”
The Tory peer also warned that the mood at the party’s conference in Manchester is “is far too positive”.
He added: “I think we need to be honest about the situation we find ourselves in.
“We’ve got to start acknowledging the terrible mess we’re in. In 2019 we got 14 million votes, in 2024 we got 6.8 million. About half of those went to Reform, another two to three million abstained, one to two million went to Labour.
“Now we’ve got about 4.5 million voters, we’ve lost 10 million voters since the 2019 election. This is an appalling situation for a mainstream party.”
It comes as Reform UK is surging ahead of the Tories and Labour in national opinion polls.