Tory leadership rivals say they'll force out Farage

ROBERT Jenrick pledged to put Nigel Farage out of business while Kemi Badenoch vowed to keep the Reform leader out of the Tory party as the two leadership contenders took part in a debate on GB News last night.

- Katie Harris

In an immediate test of how they fared, a show of hands among the audience of Conservative members saw more people plump for Mrs Badenoch than Mr Jenrick.

However, Mr Farage appeared to dominate both contenders' pitches to the Tory faithful.

Mr Jenrick insisted he has the Brexit champion "rattled" and added: "I want to retire him." The former immigration minister said the only way the Tories could return to power was by winning back Reform voters or those who opted to stay at home in July's election.

Meanwhile, Mrs Badenoch said, as an "engineer", she could fix the UK's "broken system", and that her plainspeaking matches the Clacton MP's.

Engineer

Mr Jenrick blamed immigration for the Tories' defeat at the polls, adding: "It's the reason we lost four million of our people to Reform and millions more who decided to stay at home.