Nigel Farage is “terrorising” the Conservative Party and Rishi Sunak is afraid to take him on, Labour grandee Lord Mandelson has told Sky News.

The former cabinet minister and spin-doctor, who masterminded Tony Blair’s 1997 landslide win, argued the job of the Tory leader should be to stand up to Mr Farage and Reform UK rather than seeking to appease them.

Trying to outflank Mr Farage had only served to embolden the maverick politician and make him stronger, the peer said as he appeared on Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips.

Election latest

The decision of the former UKIP leader to contest a Tory-held seat at the election and take the reins at Reform UK has exacerbated Mr Sunak’s electoral woes, threatening to split the vote and the party.

Fresh polls gave an even bleaker outlook for the Conservatives, with one indicating the party on course to pick up just 72 seats.

A separate survey on Thursday night put Reform ahead of the Tories for the first time with 19% of the vote, compared with 18% for the Conservatives.

It led Mr Farage, who is set to launch Reform’s manifesto on Monday, declare his party was now the opposition to Labour.

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player


1:04

Conservatives: We’re fighting for every vote

Meanwhile, cabinet minister Mark Harper has repeated his party’s warning that a vote for Reform UK would give Labour “a very large majority” and a “blank cheque” in office.

As well as failing to distance himself from his predecessors – Boris Johnson and Liz Truss – Mr Sunak had made an error in vying to “outflank” Reform UK, argued Lord Mandelson.

Follow Sky News on WhatsApp
Follow Sky News on WhatsApp

Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News

Tap here

The peer said: “He’s doing so by appeasing them, by sort of throwing red meat, to Farage, which is not outflanking him. It’s just making him bolder. It’s just making him, frankly, stronger than Sunak. And therefore the tactics, the strategy has been got wrong, in my view, by Sunak, right from the beginning.

“But I think the reason he doesn’t take on Farage is because he sees him as a stronger politician and frankly, he’s afraid to take him on.”

Read more on Sky News:
Tories heading for ‘warfare’, Farage predicts
How much would a Labour government change football?
Eyewitness: Behind the scenes of covering the election campaign

On Mr Farage himself, Lord Mandelson said: “I think he terrifies the Conservative Party. I mean, he terrified David Cameron into conceding a referendum on our membership of the European Union, and now he’s doing the same, to Sunak. He terrorises them.

“Now you, you’ve got to stand up to terrorists you know, in this world and including in, in British domestic politics.”

Spreaker

This content is provided by Spreaker, which may be using cookies and other technologies.
To show you this content, we need your permission to use cookies.
You can use the buttons below to amend your preferences to enable Spreaker cookies or to allow those cookies just once.
You can change your settings at any time via the Privacy Options.


Unfortunately we have been unable to verify if you have consented to Spreaker cookies.
To view this content you can use the button below to allow Spreaker cookies for this session only.

Enable Cookies
Allow Cookies Once

👉 Click here to follow Electoral Dysfunction wherever you get your podcasts 👈

He added: “But Farage is an effective politician. There’s no point in denying it. He has a clear message. It’s not one that I happen to agree with in any respect at all.

“I think that Farage is much better at, you know, taking people down and destroying things than he is in offering a constructive, clear alternative.

“But be that as it may, the job of the leader of the Conservative Party is to take that on and show an alternative to the right, not to appease it.”

He later clarified: “I’m not saying he’s literally a terrorist. I’m saying he’s terrorising the Conservative Party.”