Tories
urged not to ‘panic’ into uniting with Reform or removing Badenoch
Former
ministers warn that leader must not be ‘pushed off course’ as Conservatives
expect disastrous local elections
Rowena
Mason, Pippa Crerar and Peter Walker
Fri 25 Apr
2025 18.00 BST
Senior
Conservatives have warned colleagues against “bloody panic”, urging them not to
consider doing deals with Reform or removing Kemi Badenoch as leader, as the
party braces for a disastrous set of local election results.
Two former
cabinet ministers warned against changing direction regardless of the result
next Friday, with Andrew Mitchell saying “talk of deals with Reform is
misplaced” and John Glen arguing Badenoch must not be “pushed off course”.
Badenoch’s
party is already divided ahead of the election in which it is expected to lose
hundreds of council seats, after Ben Houchen, the Tees Valley mayor, suggested
a pact with Reform would be necessary. Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice
secretary, also said he wanted to bring together a coalition of the right,
though he insisted he was talking about bringing back voters, not a deal with
Farage’s party.
Many Tories
believe Jenrick has already embarked on a thinly disguised leadership campaign,
which he denies. Houchen is also thought of as a possible future leadership
contender, with some of his rivals believing he could give up his peerage and
seek to enter parliament through a byelection.
Conservative
MPs said privately that there were constant whispers and rumours in the tea
rooms about “regicide” of Badenoch by submitting letters of no confidence if
the results next week are a wipeout, although the majority view was that it
would not be possible after giving her such a short time in charge.
Jenrick on
Friday said he was on “exactly the same page” as Badenoch, and wanted to “put
Reform out of business”. He also said he thought Badenoch was doing a “bloody
good job” and called for people to “give her a break”.
Jenrick
weighed in behind his leader in an interview with ITV’s Good Morning Britain
about his campaign against stolen tools, which sources said had been set up
initially without the knowledge of Conservative HQ – although he approached
Badenoch for permission to make the media appearance on Thursday and was given
approval to go ahead. Both their teams insisted it was fully sanctioned and
there was nothing unusual about the process.
In her own
remarks to reporters on Friday, Badenoch confirmed: “We are not doing a deal
with Reform, there’s not going to be a pact. What we need to do right now is
focus on ensuring that voters have a credible Conservative offer.”
Mitchell, an
ex-chief whip and development secretary, said his colleagues should heed the
historic words of Rear Admiral Sir Morgan Morgan-Giles who told the 1922
Committee in 1971: “Pro bono publico, no bloody panico”.
“Reform is
trying to destroy the Conservative party and at the last election Reform may
have taken five seats off us but the Lib Dems took nearly 60,” Mitchell said.
“The right way to deal with Reform is not to talk about deals, which is a sign
of weakness, but spend time developing the right policies.
“Leading the
Conservative party now is an extremely difficult job and I don’t believe the
archangel Gabriel would be doing a better job.”
His position
was echoed by Simon Hoare, a former housing minister, who said: “Without
sounding too much like Corporal Jones, this is ‘don’t panic’.
“It’s an
early staging post after the general election. A parliament is a marathon not a
sprint. We are not even a year since the general election, and it will be a
five year parliament. We’ve got to take our fences slowly and steadily and our
key challenge as a parliamentary party is to prove ourselves steady under fire,
[and be] calm, rational and mature.”
Another
senior Conservative said the “prevailing mood is headless chicken” in relation
to Reform, but MPs need to “stop panicking about Reform and think how bad it
would look” to depose another leader.
Glen, who
attended cabinet as chief secretary to the Treasury, said Badenoch had been
elected after “an exhaustive process” and that she has been in post for less
than six months.
“The next
general election is over four years away and all Conservative MPs know we have
a lot of hard work ahead to rebuild trust,” he said. “There are no short cuts
to this process but Kemi has set out the pathway to recovery based on thorough
policy work and honesty with the electorate. Next week’s elections are likely
to be tough but I have every confidence Kemi has a clear plan and she should
not be pushed off course by any outcome we face next week.”
Some
moderate Conservative MPs, however, said they wanted to see less aping of
Reform and a “much more honest” case for why the Conservatives should be the
answer. A former minister said the message should be that those voting Reform
have “legitimate grievances” especially on economics, and a clear offer with
serious policymaking to address how Britain’s low wage economy and open welfare
state is “sucking in migrants”.
On the
prospect of a deal with Reform, one centrist MP said: “I can see why some
people would welcome this as a sort of instant hit, something which might give
a quick boost, but in the longer term it would make it much harder for us to
win elections, and it would really risk splitting the party.
“Views are
mixed, but there would be a significant number of people who would just not be
comfortable campaigning under a Reform banner. And if you think about the areas
where we lost so many seats to the Lib Dems, it would make things even worse.
As a statement of intent it’s pretty big: as a party we have decided to
effectively abandon one wing of opinion.”
Another
sceptical Tory MP said uniting the Conservatives and Reform would be an
“unbelievably poisonous marriage” that would not be sustainable.
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