Johnson will not be forgiven for 'waving in' immigrants - Farage

Nigel Farage has said a pact between Reform UK and Boris Johnson would never work, after the Conservative defector Nadine Dorries called for the right to unite.

- Rowena Mason

Farage said the public would "never, ever forgive" the former prime minister for designing an immigration system that led to an increase of millions of people coming to the UK legally after Brexit, calling it the "Boris wave".

Dorries, a close ally of Johnson and a former culture secretary, defected from the Conservatives to Reform before its conference on Friday, describing the Tory party as "dead".

But yesterday she gave an interview to a Daily Mail podcast saying Johnson should team up with Farage to create an election-winning machine. "If there's a will to make the lives of people better, then I think both men could and would find some way to accommodate each other's egos and to coexist for the sake of the country," she said.

She added: "We need all the political talents on the right of centre putting their shoulder to what needs to be done for the country."