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Robert Jenrick has ruled out a pact with Reform UK and has said he wants to send its leader, Nigel Farage, “back to retirement” despite leaked comments suggesting he wanted to join forces with the rightwing party.
The shadow justice secretary backed the Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, urging critics to “give her a break” and appeared to row back on remarks he reportedly made last month about Reform.
Speaking to a UCL Conservative Society dinner in late March, Jenrick, who is seen as a potential replacement for Badenoch if the party’s fortunes do not improve, said he was determined to “bring this coalition together” when discussing the threat Reform UK posed.
But Jenrick struck a different tone on ITV’s Good Morning Britain on Friday. Asked about his earlier comments, Jenrick said: “Well look, Kemi Badenoch and I are on exactly the same page. Kemi has been very clear there won’t be a pact with Reform, and I’ve said time and again that I want to put Reform out of business. I want to send Nigel Farage back to retirement.
“What I want to do, and Kemi feels the same, is bring back those voters that we lost, many of whom we lost to Reform at the last general election, and we lost them because we let those people down. I understand that they feel angry and frustrated with the Conservative party right now. We’re changing that.
“The party’s under new leadership under Kemi. Frankly, I think she’s doing a bloody good job in difficult circumstances. You know, it’s not easy being leader of the opposition when we’ve just lost our worst ever election defeat. Frankly, I think people should give her a break.”
Elections are due to be held in more than 20 councils in England next week and Reform is hoping to make significant gains.
Farage has previously ruled out any deal with the Conservatives even at local level, such as council coalitions, saying: “The Tories broke Britain nationally for 14 years, and their councils continue to break local communities with the highest taxes ever and worst services.”
On Thursday, Ben Houchen, the Conservative mayor for Tees Valley, urged his party to make some kind of deal with Reform UK before the next general election.
The Tees Valley mayor, who is the Tories’ most powerful elected politician, said he wanted to see a coming together of the two rightwing parties.
He told Politico: “I don’t know whether it’s a merger … [or] a pact of trust and confidence or whatever … But if we want to make sure that there is a sensible centre-right party leading this country, then there is going to have to be a coming together of Reform and the Conservative party in some way. What that looks like is slightly above my pay grade at the moment.”
