Tories can form coalitions with Reform at local level, says Badenoch
Conservative councillors are free to go into coalition with Nigel Farage’s Reform UK in town halls across England after the local elections, Kemi Badenoch has said.
The Conservative leader’s remarks open the door to Tory and Reform councillors entering into formal agreements to administer local authorities after 1 May.
Speaking on BBC Breakfast, Badenoch said she categorically ruled out any national deal with Reform. “Nigel Farage has said he wants to destroy the Conservative party. When someone says they want to destroy you, you don’t invite them into your house and ask to do a deal.”
But she argued that at local level Conservative councillors routinely “end up with various coalitions”, including with Labour, Liberal Democrats and independents.
“You don’t get to have a rerun of an election at local level, so what I’m telling local leaders across the country [is] they have to do what is right for the people in their local area,” Badenoch said.
“They must stick to Conservative principles, make sure that they’re not compromising on our values and on the things that we believe in – sound money, for example, not excessive government intervention.
“So, local leaders are voted by the people in a particular community, they will have to make the choice about what is right for their councils.”
Elections will be held in more than 20 councils in England next month, with Reform UK hoping to make significant gains.
The Conservatives are expected to take heavy losses because the seats were last contested in 2021, when the party enjoyed a high level of support after the Covid-19 vaccine rollout.
Polling suggests several councils are likely to end up in no overall control on 1 May. Badenoch’s remarks give the green light for Conservative and Reform councillors to enter into formal coalitions at the local level.
In response, the Labour party chair, Ellie Reeves, said: “Now it’s crystal clear: if you vote Reform or Conservative, you’re opening the door to more of the Tory chaos that held our country back over the past 14 years.”
Badenoch said on Thursday that the elections would be “challenging” after the party’s “historic defeat” nationally last summer.
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“We can’t win everything all the time, but I want people to know that those local Conservatives are working hard for every vote,” she said.
The Conservatives and Reform have ruled out making a pact at national level despite pressure from some MPs to unite the right.
Farage told reporters last month: “There is no pact, there is no deal, we’re not the Conservative party. We’re not Tory-lite. We pretty much despise them for their level of betrayal.”
More than 60 of Reform UK’s council candidates standing in this year’s elections are defectors from the Conservative party, research by Labour has found.
Reform has selected an ex-Conservative as its candidate in the Runcorn and Helsby byelection, which is also taking place on 1 May, while the party’s mayoral candidate for Greater Lincolnshire is the former Tory MP Andrea Jenkyns.