James Cleverly has furiously blasted Nigel Farage and claimed that the Reform UK leader “wants to destroy our party.”

In a scathing rant, the Tory leadership frontrunner made it clear that Farage would never be welcome in the party, despite some members calling for Reform and the Conservatives to join forces.

He said: “He’s not a Tory. He’s not. He never claims to be a Tory, he said that he hates the Tories.

“He wants to destroy our party. He is not one of us. This is my family, this is my clan.

“These are the people I serve. We need to win back Conservatives, the true Conservatives, who’ve been tempted across to support Reform.

“I don’t blame them. I’m not going to tell them off. We dropped the ball. It is our fault. But it is in our gift to get them back.

“But we don’t do that by making deals with people who say they want to destroy our party.”

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