Rishi Sunak hints Nigel Farage COULD be allowed to rejoin the Tories because the party is a ‘broad church’ as the Brexit champion is feted by activists at conference and dances …

Rishi Sunak appeared to open the door for a Tory comeback by Nigel Farage today after he was feted by activists at conference.

The PM insisted the party is a ‘broad church’ and welcomed anyone who shares ‘our values’ when quizzed on the Brexit champion rejoining.

But the ex-MEP quickly poured cold water on the idea, condemning the Conservatives for hiking taxes and failing to tackle immigration. 

Mr Farage is at the conference for the first time in a decade – albeit on a media pass in his capacity as a GB News commentator – 30 years after he quit in protest at the Maastricht Treaty. 

He has been given a rapturous reception by the Tory faithful, and was filmed dancing energetically with Priti Patel to Frankie Valli’s Can’t Take My Eyes Off You.

The warmth of members towards Mr Farage has been noted by senior Conservatives, who compared his star quality to that of Boris Johnson. 

 A former Cabinet minister told MailOnline he would ‘easily win a Tory leadership election if he made it to the membership’.

Asked during broadcast interviews today whether Mr Farage would be allowed back into the fold, Mr Sunak said: ‘Look, the Tory party is a broad church.

‘I welcome lots of people who want to subscribe to our ideals, to our values.’

Pressed whether that extended to Mr Farage, the PM said: ‘Look the thing I care about is delivering for the country and the more people as we’ve seen at this conference – we’ve had record attendance I think at this conference. Lots of energy, lots of engagement.’

The grinning former home secretary and the ex-Brexit Party leader duetted on Frank Sinatra’s I Love You Baby, hours after he had given visible and vocal support to Liz Truss ‘s attack on Rishi Sunak’s leadership

It is his first attendance for a decade and it prompted calls from some Tory MPs for him to rejoin the party 30 years after he quit over support for the Maastricht Treaty

Rishi Sunak (pictured touring conference stands today) appeared to open the door for a comeback by the Brexit champion as he insisted the party is a ‘broad church’ and welcomed anyone who shared ‘our values’.

But asked about Mr Sunak’s comments, Mr Farage said: ‘Would I want to join a party that’s put the tax rate up to the highest in over 70 years, that has allowed net migration to run at over half a million a year, that has not used Brexit to deregulate to help small businesses?

‘No, no and no.’

He added: ‘I achieved a lot more outside of the Tory party than I ever could have done from within it.’

Despite Mr Sunak’s apparent openness to a return for Mr Farage, Tory chairman Greg Hands gave the idea short shrift.

‘No, I don’t think I would because I think he’s repeatedly for the last 30 years or more advocated voting for other political parties,’ he said.

‘I think he said he doesn’t want to see the Conservative Party succeed so I don’t think I would.’

A former Cabinet minister told MailOnline that the premier would ‘never’ let him on the list of approved MP candidates.

‘He would be a dominant figure and he couldn’t toe the line,’ they said.

‘He would be like the scorpion crossing the river on the back of the fox – he would sting you because that’s what he does.

‘We should probably adopt the policies but not the man.’

Lichfield MP Michael Fabricant told GB News: ‘I think we should get on our hands and knees and beg him [to rejoin], we should award him with a knighthood that he should have had years ago.’

Tim Montgomerie, a former speechwriter for William Hague who is now a columnist, tweeted: ‘I into Conference earlier with Nigel Farage. He got quite the reception. I’m convinced party members would choose him as leader if they could.’

Mr Farage and the former Cabinet minister were the life and soul of the party organised by GB News at the Hilton Hotel.

The former Brexit Party leader had been front and centre at a rally led by the ex-prime minister at the Conservative Party conference yesterday.

Ms Truss used the Great British Growth Rally to demand tax cuts, cuts to household bills and a surge in housebuilding to kickstart an economic revival.

Afterwards Mr Farage, who wore a pair of Union Jack socks, said he agreed with her ideas ‘100 per cent’ and that her disastrous mini-Budget last year ‘played all the right notes, just in the wrong order’, a reference to a 1970s Morecambe and Wise gag.

‘I think what they did to her was a huge, huge mistake,’ he told the Daily Telegraph. ‘It’s policy that interests me. I think this woman has shown that she’s able to stand up, take the abuse and fight for what she believes in.’ 

Mr Farage, who was mobbed by fans when he arrived at the Manchester convention centre hosting the Tories, also refused to rule out a return to politics himself.

The former Brexit Party leader was front and centre at a rally led by the ex-prime minister at the Conservative Party conference today, as he made his first appearance at the event in a decade

Mr Farage, who was mobbed by fans when he arrived at the Manchester convention centre hosting the Tories, also refused to rule out a return to politics himself.

He has previously spoken at fringe events, including a 2013 speech to the Eurosceptic Bruges Group. 

But he came inside the secure zone reserved for paying party members, activists and business leaders to attend the Liz Truss event alongside Dame Priti and Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg.  

Mr Farage tweeted: ‘A huge buzz at the Great British Growth rally starring Liz Truss. I think she’s going to need a bigger room!’

There were cheers in the room when party members were reminded how Liz Truss was elected by them – unlike Rishi Sunak.

Ms Truss, appearing on stage smiling and to loud applause, called on Chancellor Jeremy Hunt to cut corporation tax in next month’s autumn statement – something he is resisting doing.

The former City trader who prompted a political earthquake when he took the fight to Brussels and became a ‘Bad Boy of Brexit’

Nigel Farage has spent the best part of three decades as a leading figure in British politics.

He put himself at the forefront of the UK’s eurosceptic movement after a career as a City trader.

After Britain voted to leave the European Union in 2016, Mr Farage spoke of how ‘my political ambition has been achieved’.

But he wasn’t quite done yet and later formed a new group, the Brexit Party, during Westminster’s fierce battles over the UK’s exit.

Mr Farage also became a close ally of Donald Trump when the businessman became US president.

And he has since forged a new career as a TV presenter on GB News.

1992 – Nigel Farage quit the Conservative Party in protest at John Major signing the Maastricht Treaty.

1993 – He became a founding member of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP).

1999 – Mr Farage was elected to the European Parliament as UKIP won their first seats in the Brussels legislature.

2004 – He retained his seat as an MEP at the European Parliament elections in 2004 and went on to lead a eurosceptic political grouping in Brussels.

2006 – Mr Farage became UKIP leader for the first time. He would go on to lead the party in two further spells.

February 2010 – In what has since become one of his most famous speeches in the European Parliament, Mr Farage told then EU president Herman von Rompuy he had ‘all the charisma of a damp rag and the appearance of a low-grade bank clerk’. The UKIP MEP also asked: ‘Who are you? I’d never heard of you. Nobody in Europe had ever heard of you.’

May 2010 –  As Britons voted in the 2010 general election, Mr Farage was involved in a plane crash after a light aircraft towing a ‘Vote Ukip’ banner crashed in Northamptonshire. Mr Farage was contesting the Buckingham seat against then Commons Speaker John Bercow.

August 2014 – Mr Farage welcomed Tory MP Douglas Carswell as a defector to UKIP as the party and the Conservative right-wing pressured then PM David Cameron over the UK’s membership of the EU.

May 2015 – UKIP secured almost four million votes at the general election but Mr Farage resigned as party leader after failing again to become an MP. But he swifly ‘unresigned’ just days later.

January 2016 – Mr Farage helped found the Grassroots Out campaign ahead of the EU referendum. It saw him team up with Arron Banks and Andy Wigmore, who became part of a group known as the ‘Bad Boys of Brexit’.

April 2016 – Mr Farage was left furious after the Dominic Cummings-led Vote Leave group was chosen over Grassroots Out as the official ‘Leave’ campaign by the Electoral Commission. This only increased tensions between the two Brexiteer factions.

June 2016 – Mr Farage declared 23 June 2016 as Britain’s ‘Independence Day’ after the country votes to leave the EU.

November 2016 – Alongside Mr Banks and Mr Wigmore, Mr Farage posed with US president-elect Donald Trump outside a gold lift at Trump Tower in New York. It meant he became the first foreign politician to meet the president-elect.

December 2018 – Mr Farage quit UKIP as he accused it of having a ‘fixation’ with anti-Muslim policies under its leader Gerard Batten. 

January 2019  – As Westminster hit a deadlock over Britain’s exit from the EU, Mr Farage was named as leader of the new Brexit Party.

May 2019 – The Brexit Party won the European Parliament elections by securing 29 seats. It was a result that hastened Theresa May’s exit as PM.

November 2019 – Ahead of a general election, Mr Farage announced the Brexit Party would not field any candidates against the Conservatives in the 317 seats they won at the 2017 general election. This was later claimed to have helped secure Boris Johnson his 80-seat majority.

March 2021 – Mr Farage quit as leader of Reform UK, the renamed Brexit Party, and announced he was stepping back from frontline party politics permanently. He said he had achieved what he wanted in politics following Brexit.

July 2021 – He was hired as a presenter by GB News.