THE Tories are too scared to tackle migration for fear of “looking nasty” and would be doing better under Boris Johnson, Brexit guru Lord Frost has blasted.
In a scathing post-mortem of Rishi Sunak’s leadership, the Tory peer said kicking Suella Braverman out and bringing in David Cameron effectively sealed the fate of the party.
Darren FletcherThe Sun’s Political Editor Harry Cole grills the former chief Brexit negotiator Lord Frost[/caption]
PARishi Sunak on the General Election campaign trail[/caption]
PADavid Frost looks on as ex-PM Boris Johnson signs the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement[/caption]
He told The Sun’s politics show Never Mind The Ballots that was the moment voters “lost confidence”.
The Tory peer – who resigned from Mr Johnson‘s Government – also insisted his former boss would be doing a much better job as PM had he not been ousted by MPs.
In a thinly-veiled attack against Mr Sunak, Lord Frost praised Mr Johnson for always knowing where “public opinion was” and where “the party had to position itself”.
His pre-election post-mortem comes as pollsters say the Tories are heading for “electoral extinction” – with Nigel Farage’s Reform also rising up the ranks.
The former chief Brexit negotiator has been sounding the alarm on the party’s polling slump for months and has been a huge critic of the current Tory leadership.
He was involved in commissioning an opinion poll that laid bare the likely impact of the Conservatives’ unpopularity.
Since quitting Mr Johnson’s Cabinet at the end of 2021, he has championed more traditional Tory policies and a hardline stance on migration.
Appearing on today’s episode of our show, Lord Frost said: “All political parties have got to offer something pretty serious on on migration.
“And the credibility of the Conservative Party is obviously pretty weak on this.
“In my view, we need to get net migration down to something pretty close to zero.”
He added: “We’ve got to get off this sugar rush of ‘only migration can deliver growth’.”
Asked why the Tories have not been able to achieve this, Lord Frost said: “A lot of Tories don’t want to look nasty.”
Talking about when voters had lost faith in Mr Sunak’s leadership, the Tory peer said: “The moment they lost confidence was the autumn reshuffle when Suella (Braverman) was was kicked out, David Cameron was brought back.
“It symbolised the tilt back to the old world, not just the left, but a world in which we try to pretend that Brexit had never happened.
“Back to the Cameron era, back to the way things were. And people don’t want that. They want change.”
Asked if he thought the party would be doing better had MPs not killed Mr Johnson, he said: “I do. Probably (in a better place). I don’t think Boris is in any way perfect leader, for all the reasons that we discovered.
“Because we had sort of set on a somewhat more social democratic path than we really…”
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He added: “But what Boris did have was a sense to where public opinion was, what it would put up with and what it wouldn’t, and where the party had to position itself.”
On a potential comeback, he said: “I do still talk to Boris, obviously.
“I think he is thinking about what what what’s going to happen but I am not sure we will see much more.”
Lord Frost also said if Labour win the election, the party will water down Brexit and drag Britain back into the EU’s orbit.
He said: “We do have to face this prospect that Labour are going to water down the deal we got.
“No doubt they’re going to try and get us closer into the single market even if there won’t be like a stroke of a pen that does the whole thing.
“And we are going back in the orbit of the EU.”