Tory grandees have warned their party against doing deals with Nigel Farage’s Reform UK as the Conservatives brace for heavy losses in the local elections.
Senior figures hit out at what they said would be the wrong move “strategically, electorally and politically” after Kemi Badenoch did not rule out forming coalitions with their rivals at a council level.
Mr Farage’s party is expected to ride a wave of disillusionment with politics to win hundreds of council seats across England, as well as a number of mayoralities, at the expense of Labour and the Tories.
The party could also take one of Labour’s safest seats in the Commons, in a key Westminster by-election.
Amid fears of a lurch to the right, Kemi Badenoch is facing a revolt from Tory grandees who want her to toughen her stance against Reform.
On the idea of local pacts, former cabinet minister David Davis told The Independent: “The answer is no, absolutely not. We should not be [doing that] at all. After all, this is the first local government election after our defeat in July, it will reflect nothing more than the rejection of our 14 years in government. We have not had time to recover yet.
“Even if a coalition agreement was worthwhile, this would be the worst time to do it on every single count, strategically, electorally and politically.”
Another ex-cabinet minister, Andrew Mitchell, also said his party should not be agreeing on coalitions with Reform.
He dismissed Reform as “a protest party”, adding: “We need to focus on the policy solutions to win back former Conservative voters.”
Damian Green, who was Theresa May’s deputy when she was prime minister, said he “wouldn’t want to encourage anyone into going into coalition with Reform”.
He said it may be that the electoral maths in some parts of the country makes deals “necessary to have a council running at all” but said he would be “very wary of doing anything formal”.
But he added: “Nobody who’s ever tried to do a deal with Nigel Farage has come out undamaged.”
At the weekend, Ms Badenoch did not rule out coalitions at a local level with Reform.
But she did categorically rule out a pact on a national level, saying: “I am not going into any coalition with Nigel Farage… read my lips.”
However, she argued that some councils might be under what is known as “no overall control” and in those cases, “you have to do what is right for your local area”.
“At the moment, we are in coalition with Liberal Democrats, with independents,” she said. “We’ve been in coalition with Labour before at local government level.
“They [councillors] have to look at who the people are that they’re going into coalition with and see how they can deliver for local people.”
Mr Farage hit out at the idea, however, saying on Sunday that Reform had “no intention in forming coalitions with the Tories at any level”.
Ms Badenoch’s comments came after Robert Jenrick, her shadow justice secretary, was heard in a leaked video vowing to “bring this coalition together” on the right of British politics and ensure the Conservatives and Reform were not competing for votes at the next general election.
Mr Jenrick has denied that his words amount to calling for a pact with Reform.
But the Conservative mayor of Tees Valley, Ben Houchen, made headlines a few days later when he said that if the number of Tory and Reform MPs combined created a “significant majority” after the next election, then “obviously there’s going to be a conversation to form a coalition or some sort of pact”.
Experts have suggested that Reform could take up to 500 council seats on a “good night” for the party.
The Conservatives are set to lose hundreds, with voters turning to parties like the Liberal Democrats as well as Reform.
Labour could see limited losses in their council seat numbers, as this year’s elections are being held in relatively few of the party’s traditional heartlands.
But Sir Keir Starmer faces a battle to hold on to what should be the safe Westminster seat of Runcorn in a by-election.
Polling guru Professor Sir John Curtice has warned that fewer people than ever are prepared to vote Labour or Tory in these elections in the wake of the rise of Reform.
Speaking to The Independent, Prof Curtice said less than half of voters are saying they will vote for one of the two main parties, in what is a historic shift in voting patterns.
