Tory chairman says pact with Reform UK unlikely, as Badenoch is better than Farage

CONSERVATIVE Party chairman Kevin Hollinrake has ruled out forming an electoral pact with Reform UK, claiming that Kemi Badenoch is a better political leader than Nigel Farage.

Speaking to Camilla Tominey on GB News, Hollinrake also defended Badenoch’s performance at PMQs and asking “half a question” about Angela Rayner: “She’s been pushing this for months, and indeed, the first on Wednesday, first question up, she said that the Prime Minister didn’t have a backbone. If he did have, he would sack her.

“She was very clear on that. It wasn’t the only thing she talked about Prime Minister’s questions, because there are many other things going on in this country right now that are not helping British people, in the way the economy is, cost of living, unemployment, business confidence. These are things that people are interested in as well.

“So I think to use all six questions or something, just hammering on Angela Rayner would have been the wrong thing to do. People have other priorities.

“Angela’s story was very important. We pushed on it incessantly, and ultimately that’s proved to have meant she’s had to step down, as many people were telling us to stop there’s nothing to see here.”

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He added: “When we get to our conference in the early part of October, you’ll see that full range of policies and people will see Kemi for what she is, the strongest, the most courageous and the most boldest person in politics.

“That’s what we need right now. At the end of the day, the facts of life are Conservative. Kemi is a proper Conservative.”

Asked if he was saying she was more courageous and bolder than Nigel Farage, he said: “I believe so. Because [she’s] courageous. The biggest, the most important, the greatest virtue, the greatest of all virtues, is courage, because that guarantees all the rest.

“She’s not willing to simply say what people want to hear. I think Nigel Farage has his strengths. He’s a great performer, but in the past, and I think in the future, he’ll simply tell people what they want to hear.”

On the Tories cooperating with Reform UK, he said: “A pact with reform is as likely as a pact with a Jeremy Corbyn government.

“Look at the spending plans that Reform have. £140 billion a year of annual spending, tax and spending increases, tax cuts or spending increases, including on welfare, including things like the two child benefit cap, scrapping that it is just impossible to deliver on Reform’s, spending, tax and spending agenda.

“They know it. They are just saying things people want to hear, that sort of reality. So there’s no way in the world any responsible Conservative government could do a pact with a party like that.”