Rees Mogg came up with a genius plan, says Kelvin MacKenzie

He was reflecting a poll by JL Partners which showed that if Nigel Farage came back to run Reform he would add another 6% taking them to 16%, meaning they would be hot on the heels of the Tories at 21%.

And, you know as well as me, if Sunak, only polled 21% the Conservatives would literally be destroyed, giving Labour a 200+ majority and probably a decade where immigration would grow, union power would grow and a sense of hopelessness would grow.

Jacob’s idea was simple enough. Let’s merge Reform and the Conservative party. Although the maths are not straightforward- you can’t simply add the polling numbers together and make 37%- the merger would give voters on the Right a much better chance than the divided offering which confronts them right now.

Plus, of course, the Tories, would have a proposition which would make sense. We would leave ECHR, net migration would be cut, the small boats would be pushed back, net zero would be abandoned and those claiming mental issues made it impossible to work would face more detailed questioning.

Under the Jacob deal Nigel Farage, Richard Tice and Ben Habib would sit down across from Rishi and agree the candidates for each constituency. Inevitably, and here’s the tough bit, it would mean One Nation followers would lose out.

Why should that worry the Prime Minister? Under the present polling they will all be thrown out anyway.

One of the issues it throws up is what would the party be called. My advice is to be honest with the voters and name it Tory/Reform party. My impression from Jacob is that he would prefer it to be called the Tory Party.

To my mind that won’t work. For whatever reason the Cameron-May-Boris-Truss-Sunak combo has destroyed trust in the Tories.

The problem is that people feel poorer and are not prepared to take into account that £400billion was spent during the Covid years without any productivity attached to it, leaving us with an enormous inflation bill.

Economically, things will get a lot better over the summer. In the next few the government will announce that inflation will have fallen to 2%, and that wages are roaring ahead. But Rishi won’t et ay credit for that.

Rishi comes from a deal-making background in finance. He knows that you have to think creatively to get across the line. Right now, for him the future looks bleak.

I agree it’s not all that tough if the missus is worth £750million, but to be running the party when it goes down with the biggest defeat in its history, would not look on what had previously been an unblemished CV.

So, what is there to lose? He starts secret negotiations on the Jacob plan once Parliament has gone into summer recess on July 24. I suspect Reform wouldn’t be all that tough. As long as Farage got Home Secretary (massively important PR wise for Reform voters) I imagine Tice and Habib would be content with much lesser roles.

The difficulty would be persuading Left-wing Tories that would be in the party’s broader interest that they make way for their Right-wing candidates.

Inevitably this would lead a number joining Labour. Good. It’s where they belong anyway. I am so old I remember Edward Heath running the Conservative party. I was always puzzled at what he was doing in the party anyway.

Once he was out of the way, it allowed a proper Conservative, in the shape of Margaret Thatcher, to come to the fore.

Under the arrangement, in the short term the leader would be Rishi, but it would only be a matter of time before the most impressive politician of the age, Nigel Farage, would take over.

He has a natural touchstone with working class voters. A rare commodity in the Tory party right now and Jacob’s merger would give hm the opportunity to take the nation on a journey to a new golden age.

Under a Labour victory, that age, a best will be tin. As Jacob’s plan gathers pace I urge you to support it.