KEMI Badenoch has denied that the Conservatives are plotting a coalition with Reform UK for the next election after leaked audio from one of her MPs stated otherwise.
The leader of the Tory Party refused to comment on the reports that Robert Jenrick had vowed to make sure the Tories would not be fighting with Nigel Farage’s Reform come the next round of elections.
At Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday, Badenoch said that Labour backbenchers were “plotting” to overturn the Supreme Court's landmark judgment that women are defined by biology in WhatsApp group chats.
Replying to Badenoch’s claims, leader of the Labour Party Keir Starmer said: “I think the WhatsApp group that should be worried about is the one of the shadow justice secretary."
He added: “The mask has slipped just one week before the elections because the shadow justice secretary is not here, a man who's doing everything he can to replace her.
“The man that most of them want as leader of their party has admitted that Reform and the Tories are working together.”
Jenrick (below) had vowed to “bring this coalition together” to ensure that the Tories and Reform UK are no longer fighting each other for votes by the time of the next election, Sky News has reported.
He told an event with students last month that he would try “one way or another” to make sure the Tories and Reform were not competing against each other to try and secure as many votes as possible.
Badenoch failed to reply to Starmer’s comments on Jenrick pledging to work with Reform and instead brushed off the claims, saying: “Who's playing political football now?”
Adding: “He [Starmer] should be more worried about his backbenchers than my front benchers.”
Jenrick, who lost the Tory leadership race to Badenoch last year when Rishi Sunak resigned, is seen as the likely potential replacement if the party’s fortunes do not improve.
Speaking at the UCL Conservative Society dinner in late March, Jenrick said Farage’s Reform was doing “well in the polls. And my worry is that they become a kind of permanent or semi-permanent fixture on the British political scene.”
He added: “And if that is the case, and I say, I am trying to do everything I can to stop that being the case, then life becomes a lot harder for us, because the right is not united.
“And then you head towards the 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.
“I want the fight to be united. And so, one way or another, I’m determined to do that and to bring this coalition together and make sure we unite as a nation as well.”
A Conservative spokesperson said: "Kemi Badenoch has made perfectly clear there will be absolutely no electoral pact with Reform."
