Boris Johnson blames 'Pied Piper of Clacton' Nigel Farage for Tory election defeat

Boris Johnson has said the Conservative Party should not attempt to "absorb" Reform UK after the Tories suffered their biggest election defeat in history.

In his column for the Daily Mail, the former prime minister said Reform leader Nigel Farage, the "cheroot-puffing Pied Piper of Clacton", played a "significant" role in Labour's win by eating into the Tory vote.

With Sir Keir Starmer's Labour hailing its biggest election victory since 1997, despite fetching a lower popular vote than in 2017 and 2019 under Jeremy Corbyn's leadership, Mr Johnson suggests this week's landslide is "not all it seems".

"There is a mystery about this landslide – and that is, how on earth did the Tories sustain such losses, when support for Labour was so tepid," the former Tory leader writes.

"The answer is complex, as with the extinction of the dinosaurs. But the Yucatan asteroid in this catastrophe was obvious: it was Reform."

Mr Johnson, who stood down as prime minister in July 2022 after a series of scandals within the Conservative Party, said he was confident the Tories could bounce back after they lost 252 seats, leaving them with just 121 remaining.

He said the party does not need to "absorb" other parties, seemingly alluding to merging with Reform UK, adding: "We need to occupy the space ourselves."

As the Conservative Party picks up the pieces following its crushing electoral defeat, debate over who could take Rishi Sunak's place as leader is already raging.

"Of the front runners, some didn't make it through the night - the likes of Penny Mordaunt and Grant Shapps, no longer MPs let alone potential leaders," ITV News Political Correspondent Romilly Weeks writes.

"Kemi Badenoch, Suella Braverman, Priti Patel and Robert Jenrick from the right of the party are all still standing and could potentially take on the arduous task of leading the Tories.

"Of the remaining centrists, Tom Tugendhat and possibly James Cleverly and Victoria Atkins are being touted as contenders."

Former chancellor Jeremy Hunt, who kept hold of his seat by just 900 votes, had been tipped as a potential Tory leader, but he has ruled himself out for now, appealing for his party to take time to reflect.

Meanwhile, with Reform UK winning five seats in its most successful election result yet, Mr Farage has pledged to clean up the party's image after its campaign was dogged by allegations of racism and homophobia against several of its candidates and party members.

Speaking to ITV News, Farage said he would be "ruthless" in turning Reform into a party that is not sectarian or racially based "in any way at all".

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