Reform leader rejects an election pact with Conservatives
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Richard Tice, the leader of Reform UK, has ruled out an election pact with the Tories as Conservative critics express fears their own party faces an “extinction-level event”.
The Reform party achieved their best ever by-election results on Thursday, securing 13 per cent of the vote in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, and 10 per cent in Kingswood, South Gloucestershire.
It has led to fresh speculation about whether Reform, which had been the Brexit Party until 2020, could do an election pact with the Conservatives. The Brexit Party did so in 2019.
But writing in The Telegraph, Mr Tice explicitly rejects the idea, ruling out a deal and saying that Tory MPs deserve to lose their jobs given their record in office.
Mr Tice writes: “They cannot be trusted at their word, and we cannot reward failure with more incumbency. Tory MPs deserve to face redundancy for their woeful performance.
“Rishi Sunak says their plan is working. Some plan, as we have just slipped into recession and GDP per head has fallen for almost two years due to their mass low skilled immigration policies.
“They should hang their heads in shame, then stand aside and let Reform UK take on the grave threat of Starmergeddon.
“This is why we will not be doing any deals with the Tories. We stand everywhere. Instead our intent is to work ever harder over the medium term to reshape the British political landscape.”
‘We’re facing an extinction-level event’
There were signs of despondency and frustration on the Tory benches on Friday morning after the party lost both the seats of Wellingborough and Kingswood to the Labour Party.
Andrea Jenkyns, a Tory MP, repeated her call for Mr Sunak to be replaced by a different leader. There were also private calls for game-changing tax cuts at next month’s Budget.
But reaction on Friday morning was also notable for how few other Tory MPs went public with attacks, perhaps reflecting a resignation to the party’s woes which some on the Tory benches privately have voiced.
A source close to a group of Tory rebels plotting against Mr Sunak said: “When the government are spinning these as better-than-expected results, you know just how far we’ve sunk.
“The reality is Labour are currently storming to a huge victory and we have an insurgent party on the right polling above 10 per cent. Cue Nigel Farage’s intervention two months out from a General Election and we’re facing an extinction-level event. It’s a slow-motion car crash.”
Nigel Farage, the former Ukip and Brexit Party leader, is honorary president of Reform. He is not expected to become party leader, a role held by Richard Tice, but that possibility still creates nerves among Tories concerned about Reform’s surge in support.
Ms Jenkyns, a prominent past supporter of Boris Johnson known to have submitted a no confidence letter in Mr Sunak to the 1922 Committee, tweeted urging colleagues to act.
Ms Jenkyns wrote: “However difficult for fellow MPs we have no choice,we have to change leader. We don’t want to be here but sticking heads in the sand will make matters worse.
“Last chance saloon to change course with a new leader, be tough on immigration and save our great country from the socialists.”
‘Genuine alternative to consensus politics’
Danny Kruger and Miriam Cates, the Tory MPs who co-chair the New Conservatives group, called for a policy overhaul which included cutting income tax and considering leaving the European Convention on Human Rights.
The pair said in a joint statement: “The results in yesterday’s by-elections are unequivocal: Labour are winning because many of the people who backed us in 2019 are staying at home or voting Reform. Voters are not flocking to Labour. They want a genuine alternative to the consensus politics of the last two decades – high taxes, low security, managed decline.”
However Sir Simon Clarke, the only other Tory who has gone public calling for Mr Sunak, remained silent on Friday morning.
He made his intervention in January, in an article in The Telegraph calling Mr Sunak an “anchor” on the party’s electoral fortunes and urging him to step aside, but was not followed by any other fellow Conservative MPs making similar open calls.
Other Tory colleagues do, however, hold similar frustrations, with some Conservative MPs expressing their alarm at the by-election results in private.
One Tory MP said: “Rishi is just not cutting through is he? That’s what it boils down to. He’s not getting any cut through at all. People aren’t actively hostile to him but they don’t think he’s delivering.”
The MP went on to note with alarm the Treasury’s recent scaling back of tax cut options for the Budget on March 6 as the public finances get squeezed by the high cost of servicing government debt.
The MP said: “We’ve got a Budget now for which Jeremy Hunt [the Chancellor] is flagging up. He won’t cut taxes as much as he hoped, which is crazy given we’re in a recession.
“Both the Prime Minister and the Chancellor have been captured by the Treasury. If we don’t give the public a clearer understanding that there’s a huge problem with the economy.
“If we don’t give them measures to address it they will say ‘what the hell is the point of the Tories’.”
Mr Sunak admitted that there was “work to do” to convince the public progress was being made when he gave a brief TV interview after the by-election results.
The Prime Minister said: “It shows that we’ve got work to do to show people that we are delivering on their priorities and that’s what I‘m absolutely determined to do.
“But it also shows that there isn’t a huge amount of enthusiasm for the alternative in Keir Starmer and the Labour Party. And that’s because they don’t have a plan. And if you don’t have a plan, you can’t deliver real change.”
Richard Tice
‘The Tories have betrayed us all’
