Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg told the Daily T: “Reform voters are good, sensible people. I heard from people who came to help me with the election campaign that they’d gone into Central Office to help the telephone campaigning operation.

“And they’d rung people in Clacton and they’d rung Tory members and the Tory members were all voting for Nigel Farage.

“These aren’t wild, silly people, they are good, solid British citizens who wanted to vote for a party that was going to do something they cared about.

“Are we saying as I think David Cameron that they’re all ‘fruitloops and Looney Tunes’, I’ll paraphrase? If we are we’re stupid. Reform did not take our votes. We have no right to those four million votes. We have to win people at every election and Reform is a powerful reality.

“The idea that Nigel Farage, who is one of the most capable and charismatic campaigners, is going to disappear in a puff of smoke from one of his Malboro Lights seems highly improbable.”

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