Kemi Badenoch has rejected claims of a rift with shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick over whether the party should form a pact with Reform UK.
The Conservative leader has always ruled out an electoral pact with Reform UK, arguing that Nigel Farage’s party is seeking to destroy the Tories.
In a leaked recording obtained by Sky News, Jenrick said he wanted the “fight” against Labour at the next general election to be “united” and he was “determined” to “bring this coalition together”.
Asked about Jenrick’s comments on Wednesday, Reform leader Farage told GB News: “I think my supporters would be revolted.”
The story was seized on by Labour and the Lib Dems, who urged Badenoch to sack her former leadership rival for contradicting her – but her spokesman insisted there were no differences between them.
“Kemi Badenoch has made perfectly clear there will be absolutely no electoral pact with Reform.
“If you actually read the shadow justice secretary’s words, he is saying he is working to defeat Reform. The coalition he’s talking about is of centre-right voters and bringing them together,” the spokesman told reporters.
Asked if Badenoch considered Jenrick a “team player”, the spokesman said: “Yes, the shadow cabinet is a well-functioning team.”
He said Badenoch had not been aware of Jenrick’s comments ahead of them being obtained by Sky, but it was “demonstrably true” that the right was not “united” and that the Tories needed to get millions of voters back from Reform UK.
And he hit back at claims Badenoch, who beat Jenrick to the Tory crown in a vote of members last November, should “rein him in” for writing articles and speeches that went beyond his shadow ministerial brief.
“It is fine for shadow cabinet members and MPs to talk about things that are in the advancement of the Conservative Party,” he told reporters.
The Tory leader struck a similarly relaxed tone when asked by the BBC if Jenrick was undermining her leadership with his comments on Reform.
“No, not at all,” she replied.
“I mean we have to be realistic. The Conservatives lost a lot of seats not just because of Labour doing better, but because we lost a lot of votes to Reform so of course we want those voters to come back to us, just as the ones who went to the Lib Dems and Labour, we want them to come back to us.”
She added that the party could only tempt voters back with a “visibly centre-right, authentic Conservative offer”.
Farage was equally unenthusiastic about the potential for a deal with either Jenrick or the Tories, telling GB News: “I can only deal with people who I could trust. I don’t trust them.”
He added: “We had 14 years of the Conservative party.
“Tax is the highest since 1947, the state growing, the civil service growing, mass immigration at levels even Tony Blair couldn’t dream of.
“They let people down by every single measure.”
On Thursday, the Conservative mayor of Tees Valley, Ben Houchen. told Politico: “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.”
He said that he didn’t know whether that would be in the form of a “merger” or an “act of trust” adding that such a decision was “slightly above my pay grade at the moment”.
Earlier, at a fiery Prime Minister’s Questions, Badenoch attacked Sir Keir Starmer for lacking the “balls” to say what he really thought about the transgender issue.
The PM hit back, saying no Tory MPs thought she would be the Conservative leader at the next general election.
He added that Jenrick – who was absent from the chamber – was “away plotting,” and that he would be left “fighting over the bones of the Tory party” with Nigel Farage, who he said would “eat the Tory party for breakfast”.
In the recording at the centre of the controversy, which was made in March this years at a local Tory event, Jenrick can be heard talking about how Reform UK could make life difficult for his party.
“You head towards a general election, where the nightmare scenario is that Keir Starmer sails in through the middle as a result of the two parties being disunited.
“I don’t know about you, but I’m not prepared for that to happen.”
He added: “I want the fight to be united. And so, one way or another, I’m determined to do that and bring this coalition together and make sure we unite as a nation as well.”
A source close to Jenrick told PA Media on Wednesday that he had no differences with his party leader on ruling out a pact with Reform.
“Rob’s comments are about voters and not parties.
“He’s clear we have to put Reform out of business and make the Conservatives the natural home for all those on the right, rebuilding the coalition of voters we had in 2019 and can have again.
“But he’s under no illusions how difficult that is – we have to prove over time we’ve changed and can be trusted again.”
