Tory-Reform merger to beat Labour ruled out by Kemi Badenoch

Kemi Badenoch has rejected a suggestion the Tories could merge with Reform UK to beat Labour in the next election.

The Conservative leader also criticised the actions of Tory-led governments she served in, including leaving the EU without a “proper” plan, as she made her first major speech of 2025.

Nigel Farage’s Reform UK has overtaken the Tories in the opinion polls in recent days, and is within touching distance of Labour’s lead with the public.

Asked about a possible merger with Mr Farage’s party in order to beat Labour, Mrs Badenoch replied: “Nigel Farage says he wants to destroy the Conservative Party. Why on earth would we merge with that?”

She added: “Nigel Farage has been knocking around for 20-plus years. He’s been leading all sorts of different parties, so he has had a head start.

“I’ve been leading the Conservative Party for 10 weeks. Let’s see where we are in a few months and years.”

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Mistakes

The Tory leader acknowledged her party had made mistakes over initiating Brexit under the leadership of Boris Johnson and Theresa May, as well as on immigration in recent years.

She told a central London audience of Conservative members and journalists: “We were making announcements without proper plans. We announced that we would leave the European Union before we had a plan for growth outside the EU.”

She added: “We announced year after year that we would lower immigration, but despite our efforts, immigration kept going up.

“Those mistakes were made because we told people what they wanted to hear first and then tried to work it out later. That is going to stop under my leadership.”

The UK is not as rich as it thinks it is, Mrs Badenoch suggested, adding there was a “complacency that Britain will always be wealthy and a refusal to live within our means”.

She said: “We owe it to that next generation to leave an inheritance for them and not mortgage their future to make our lives more comfortable.”

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'Deeply despondent'

Younger people are “deeply despondent” about the future, she added, signalling she wanted to offer them more in order to attract them towards voting for the Conservatives.

Asked whether her negative tone compared with Mr Farage’s political persona put her at a disadvantage, Mrs Badenoch insisted she was “doing a serious job”.

She added: “I’m speaking based on where the Conservative Party is. We have just suffered our greatest ever defeat.

“I don’t think the public will start trusting us if I turn up looking like I’m having a great time and everything is fantastic.”

Mr Farage, who has previously clashed with the Tory leader after she cast doubt on his claims about the growing membership of Reform, poked fun at Mrs Badenoch following the speech.

Writing on X, formerly Twitter, he said: “A total of 21 people are currently watching Kemi Badenoch’s speech on Facebook and her YouTube stream crashed.

“It’s a good job she understands the digital age.”

'Denial'

Ellie Reeves, Labour Party chair, meanwhile said the Tory leader was “in complete denial”.

She added: “Far from rebuilding trust, Kemi Badenoch still can’t bring herself to be honest about the true litany of mistakes the Conservatives made over 14 years of failure in government.

“Where was the apology for her role in Liz Truss’ disastrous mini-Budget that crashed the economy and sent mortgages spiralling, or the £22 billion black hole left in the public finances?

“The Tories haven’t listened and they haven’t learned and Kemi Badenoch should own up to the damage she and the Conservative Party have done to the country.”

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