Kemi Badenoch ruled out any reform pact with Reform UK after Thursday’s byelections, saying the idea of a deal was “stone-dead.” She tied that judgment to Reform’s poor results and used Nigel Farage’s £5m gift to sharpen her attack.
Writing in the Mail on Sunday, she said: “The results have left the idea of the Conservatives doing a deal with Reform stone-dead.” She also said: “And what kind of character accepts £5m in cash and says it was merely a gift? Mail on Sunday readers have far too much common sense to believe that. Nobody gets £5m in their pocket for nothing, whatever Nigel Farage claims.”
Makerfield and Aberdeen South
In Makerfield, Labour’s Andy Burnham won with a 9,000-plus majority over Reform’s Robert Kenyon and took more than 50% of the vote. In Aberdeen South, the Scottish Tories beat the Scottish National party while Reform came a distant third. Badenoch said those results proved her point after pressure to “unite the right.”
She wrote: “When those elections were called, I came under intense pressure to ‘unite the right’. The argument sounded clever: the Conservative party had never won in Makerfield, so why not do a deal with Nigel Farage and stand down? Reform UK could do the same in Aberdeen and everyone would claim victory.” She added: “Thankfully, I know terrible advice when I hear it and the results on Friday proved my point.”
Nigel Farage and the £5m gift
The dispute also reaches back before the 2024 general election, when Farage received a £5m gift from Christopher Harborne. Farage first said the money was for personal security for his lifetime, then later said he regarded it as a reward from Harborne for campaigning for Brexit. The parliamentary standards commissioner is investigating the gift.
Badenoch’s criticism puts a formal distance between the Conservative party and Reform UK at the same time as a separate scrutiny process continues over the donation. A Reform spokesperson told: “We won’t need to ever deal with the Tories. They broke Britain and we won’t give them a chance to do it again. We have now led the national opinion polls for well over a year.”
Conservative party and Reform UK
Badenoch also wrote: “We are not the same, and voters are not ours to trade like football cards.” The split matters because it closes off the pact talk that surrounded Makerfield and Aberdeen South, while leaving both parties to compete without an agreement in the places they had been discussing. Keir Starmer is expected to announce his departure as prime minister on Monday.
