PURGE the Tory Party in Parliament, an ex-MP told a conference fringe meeting debating unity with Reform.

Marco Longhi, who lost his Dudley seat at the general election, said that the next leader should emulate Boris Johnson, who removed the whip from anti-Brexit rebel Tories in 2019.

Mr Longhi’s planned purge could be extensive, since he told the meeting, organised by Liz Truss’s Popular Conservatives faction, that only 20 Tory MPs were up to scratch.

“Twenty or so are of this brand,” he said, referring to the PopCons as they are known, “and the other 100 are not.”

In the improbable event of Mr Longhi’s counsel being followed by the next party leader, this would leave just 21 MPs enjoying the Tory whip in the Commons.

The meeting was also attended by Orpington MP Gareth Bacon, Jacob Rees-Mogg’s sister Annunziata and GB news presenter Nana Akua, who all stressed that the Tories had flopped in the election by not being conservative enough.

“We put up taxes, we let immigration run out of control, Reform took over the empty void we have left,” Ms Rees-Mogg bemoaned.

Ms Rees-Mogg, who once declined a request by David Cameron to shorten her name to Nancy Mogg, did not however endorse her brother’s call for an electoral pact with the Farageists.

But, exuding a rather sulphurous fanaticism, she spent some time denouncing Theresa May, for no apparent reason beyond being a worse person to work for than Nigel Farage.

Mr Bacon also rejected a pact, suggesting instead, strictly metaphorically, that Farage should be given a smack in the face.