Mark Francois MP has said that there is room for Nigel Farage in the Conservative Party and described him as a “rock star politician”.
He told GB News: “I've known Nigel for many years. He's a rock star politician, there’s no denying.
“We've always been a broad church. I think there's some room on the right pew.”
Asked by Camilla Tominey if Farage could be a future Tory PM, he said: “I think you're going about five fences ahead.
“Your question to me was can I countenance Nigel Farage one day re-joining the Conservative Party? And the I think the answer to that is yes.”
On Rishi Sunak’s future, he said: “Stopping the boats is necessary, but it's not sufficient. Where are we? Some people think there could be a General Election on the second of May to coincide with the local elections.
“My instinct is, partly for economic reasons, it’s going to be the autumn but it could be - let's just assume for a moment it is the second of May, right?
“In which case, even if you have a relatively short campaign, Parliament would have to be dissolved, which is the starting gun for the general election, in mid-April. Today is the 17th of December.
“So we're less than four months from the beginning of a General Election campaign. In that scenario, we've been 20 points behind consistently in the poll of polls for longer than that.”
He added: “John Curtice, the electoral guru, said if things stay as they are, we could be reduced to 130 seats. That's where we are. And there's no point pretending that we not that we're not.
“I would say that, whether you're in the ERG or the TRG, across the Conservative Party, it is time to wake up and smell the coffee.
“Because if things remain as they are, we are heading for a defeat. We don't want to lose, we don't want a Labour government. We're all going to have to work together to do something about it.
“What should that something be? We have a number of good policies, but they're atomised. I think what's missing, and some of your colleagues in the media have pointed this out, you've pointed this out, there is no overall compelling narrative as you would say, there’s no overall story.”
