The brutal findings of the YouGov poll suggesting Conservative members want leader Kemi Badenoch out and a pact with Nigel Farage confirm what the party’s gloomy MPs are telling Sky News here in Manchester.
One MP, whose majority slumped from nearly 18,000 to less than 1,500 last year, said a deal with Reform UK was essential to prevent Labour clinging to power at the next general election with support of the Liberal Democrats, nationalists and Greens.
Another veteran MP predicted that in the former Conservative stronghold of Essex, where Reform UK won two seats last year, the Tories could lose every seat in the county – including Ms Badenoch’s North West Essex – because of a surge in support for Mr Farage’s party.
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A major reason why there is strong support among MPs and activists in Manchester for Robert Jenrick to replace Ms Badenoch as leader is because he favours a deal with Reform UK.
Mr Jenrick has opened a potential rift with the embattled Tory leader by refusing to rule out a pact with Mr Farage and Reform UK, while Ms Badenoch has repeatedly rejected calls to “unite the right” by working with Mr Farage to defeat Labour.
Questioned in Manchester by Sky News deputy political editor Sam Coates, who asked: “You’d never support a pact?” Mr Jenrick replied: “That is not our priority. That’s not a priority.
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“What I want to focus on now is just focus on changing the Tory party. Changing so we can win back the support we lost at the general election.”
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Former Tory cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg, defeated in last year’s election, is another senior Conservative who argues that cooperation between the Tories and Reform UK is essential.
“On the right, we have a group of people on two different parties who agree on the overwhelming majority of policies,” he has said previously. “I think we need to work together.”
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Senior Tory MPs are highlighting the threat from Reform UK in Essex, where all the county’s seats were won by the Conservatives with more than 50% of the vote in 2019, but they could now face a potential wipeout because of the advance of Mr Farage’s party.
Last year, the Tories were reduced to 10 seats in the county, with much smaller majorities. Reform UK won two seats, Mr Farage in Clacton and James McMurdock in Basildon South and Thurrock South. Labour won five and the Liberal Democrats one.
An Essex wipeout would not only rob the Conservatives of Ms Badenoch in North West Essex, but also shadow cabinet members Sir James Cleverly (Braintree), Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) and Dame Priti Patel (Witham), chief whip Rebecca Harris (Castle Point) and stalwarts Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex), Sir John Whittingdale (Maldon) and Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford).
Despite the gloom of the Sky News poll, an optimistic message to party members was delivered by the Tory MPs’ shop steward Bob Blackman, at a 1922 Committee and ConservativeHome reception in Manchester, attended by Ms Badenoch.
Mr Blackman, chairman of the ’22, recalled that when Margaret Thatcher was first elected party leader in 1975 she struggled at first and was patronised by not just Labour prime ministers but also snobs inside the Tory party, but then went on to win the 1979 general election.
