Kemi Badenoch has ruled out a deal with Nigel Farage, but growing support for Reform raises questions about the Conservatives’ path to power.
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Kemi Badenoch has ruled out a deal between the Conservatives and Reform UK. (Image: Getty)
Kemi Badenoch has made it clear she has no intention of doing a deal with Nigel Farage’s Reform UK. In her speech at the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham on Tuesday, Badenoch firmly rejected the idea of joining forces with Reform. “We are not uniting with that,” she said. She also said she would “rather have another General Election than do a deal with Reform UK” if the next election resulted in a situation where the Conservatives needed an agreement with Farage’s party.
Badenoch argued that the Conservatives and Reform are fundamentally different, telling the conference: “They are not like us. We are not like them.” Her comments draw a clear line between the Conservatives and Reform ahead of the next General Election.
But the latest polling shows that support on the right is currently divided between the two parties. An Opinium voting-intention poll conducted between September 30 and October 2 put Labour on 30%, Reform on 25% and the Conservatives on 17%.
Another Ipsos poll conducted in September gave Labour 27%, Reform, 23% and the Conservatives 21%. The figures show the competition between the Conservatives and Reform for voters who may otherwise support a right-of-centre party.
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Under Britain’s first-past-the-post electoral system, votes are counted constituency by constituency, meaning national vote share does not directly translate into seats in Parliament. The division of votes between parties can therefore be significant in closely fought constituencies.
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Badenoch has nevertheless made clear that she intends to fight the next election as Conservative leader without an electoral pact with Reform. She criticised Farage’s party during her conference speech and rejected calls for the Conservatives to “unite the right”.
The Conservative leader also said she would prefer another general election to compromising with Reform in a hung Parliament scenario. The question could become particularly important if neither party secures enough seats to govern alone.
For now, however, there is no agreement between the Conservatives and Reform, and Badenoch has explicitly ruled one out.
