Nigel Farage hits back at Tory MP after swipe at Reform UK: 'I'd be very careful!'

Davies also said that the key for the Tories was focusing on what they did.

Speaking on GBNews, Farage said: "Well, I've heard that before (about the party being irrelevant). You know, I remember Ukip when I was leading it in the early days, being described by David Cameron as ‘swivel-eyed loonies, fruitcakes and mostly racist’. Well, that came back to rather bite Mr Cameron because, in the end, I managed to get him out as Prime Minister.

“So be very careful, Mr Davies. I like Philip but be careful.

"Because if you go and talk to your constituents, and you ask them about Reform’s policies of fighting back against the woke agenda, helping small businesses, fulfilling the promises on immigration that were made in the Brexit campaign, you might find that actually a lot of Tory voters prefer Reforms policies to Tory one.

“Some Conservative members of parliament think they have a God given entitled right to their jobs, and that nobody else should ever stand for an action against them.

“You've got the editorials of the Mail, the Sun, the Telegraph. They're all saying Reform shouldn't exist. We need to keep the Tories in power. The Tories are really awful. They're terrible, but Labour would be worse. Well, don’t we deserve something better than this.

“Don't we deserve to have an actual open and proper debate, where parties put out what they believe in and let the electorate decide? I'll tell you this for nothing. There is no way that Richard Tice is backing down.

"There is no way he's going to do sweetheart deals with any Tory Members of Parliament whatsoever. And Reform isn't here for one election. It's here for the long term to try and replace the existing establishment parties.”

Davies insisted the future was still “in the hands of the Conservatives” despite disastrous early polling which shows them well behind Labour.

On the creeping support Richard Tice and his party are receiving he said: “Reform is any relevance in this to a certain extent, I like Richard Tice. I consider myself a friend of Richard Tice. I'm certainly not going to criticise Richard, he's a good guy and I probably agree with him on more things than I disagree with him.

“But the fact of the matter is the issue is not the Reform Party in itself. No, ultimately, we've got to persuade people that they are much better off having with us than under a Labour government. And if they feel that they'll vote Conservative at the election, that is our task.

“Reform will not make any impact on the election at all. This is all down to us. We need to win voters back by concentrating on what we do.”

​“Reform is a protest vote in effect. People will be voting for Reform because they are unhappy with what we were doing as the government. That's why they want to vote for reform. So my point is that our future is in our own hands here. We've got to win those voters back. If Reform doesn't stand at the election or whether they stand at the election is neither here nor there.

“Because if people don't feel that there's any better off having a Labour government, they will vote Conservative anyway, whether a reformed candidate is standing or not.

“So Reform in that regard are really irrelevant. It is what we do. We've got to persuade people between now and the general election that they are much better off with a Conservative Government, rather than a Labour Government.

“If we can do that they'll vote Conservative. If we can't do that, they'll either vote Reform or they won't vote at all or vote for another party. So it doesn't really matter about the other parties. Our future is in our own hands. We've got to win these people back by our own actions.”