{"id":235144,"date":"2025-02-09T15:11:14","date_gmt":"2025-02-09T15:11:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/09\/tory-shadow-minister-downplays-talk-of-reform-pact\/"},"modified":"2025-02-09T15:11:14","modified_gmt":"2025-02-09T15:11:14","slug":"tory-shadow-minister-downplays-talk-of-reform-pact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/09\/tory-shadow-minister-downplays-talk-of-reform-pact\/","title":{"rendered":"Tory shadow minister downplays talk of Reform pact"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Tory<\/div>


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Joshua Nevett<\/span><\/p>\n

Political reporter<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Conservative shadow minister Alex Burghart has said there is “not a conversation to be had” about suggestions of an electoral pact with Reform UK.<\/p>\n

Appearing on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Burghart was asked whether he could see a pact happening, given some Conservative figures had proposed one in recent days.<\/p>\n

Burghart said the Tories were “not going to do a deal with a party who wants to kill us”, but did not definitively rule it out when pressed on the subject by Kuenssberg.<\/p>\n

A Reform UK spokesperson said there were no circumstances in which the party would do a pact with the Conservatives.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The rebranded Brexit Party came third in last year’s general election, winning 14% of the vote and five MPs, including party leader Nigel Farage.<\/p>\n

Last week, Reform UK topped a YouGov opinion poll<\/a> for the first time, edging in front of Labour on 24% and the Tories on 21%.<\/p>\n

An electoral pact is usually a deal between two or more parties to avoid splitting the vote and maximise their candidates’ chances.<\/p>\n

In 2019, the Brexit Party stood down many candidates ahead of that year’s general election, which resulted in a Conservative landslide and Boris Johnson becoming prime minister.<\/p>\n

Burghart, the shadow chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, said he believed his party could win the next general election under Kemi Badenoch’s leadership<\/p>\n

He told the BBC: “Reform’s stated ambition is to destroy the Conservative Party.<\/p>\n

“That’s a pretty difficult first date. If somebody says they’re out to destroy you, do you start thinking about marriage. <\/p>\n

“Whilst reform is talking about completely killing us, I don’t think there’s a conversation to be had here.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Speaking to the Express<\/a>, Conservative peer Lord Craig Mackinlay and and former cabinet minister Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg supported the idea of an electoral pact with Reform UK.<\/p>\n

And Conservative MP and former minister Esther McVey told the TaxPayers’ Alliance’s podcast<\/a> this week she could support an electoral pact with Reform UK.<\/p>\n

She claimed Labour won the last general election “because basically the two parties on the right didn’t come to some sort of agreement”.<\/p>\n

“So I think electoral pact, maybe,” she said.<\/p>\n

When asked if he would rule out a Tory-Reform UK electoral pact, Burghart said: “I want the Conservative Party to get a majority at the next election.<\/p>\n

“We’re not going to do a deal with a party who wants to kill us.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Burghart also rejected the suggestion the Conservatives had been pushed into making a policy announcement on immigration by the party led by Farage, who has said he wanted to see a “freeze” on non-essential immigration.<\/p>\n

This week, the Conservatives unveiled plans<\/a> to bar migrants who claim benefits from settling indefinitely in the UK, and make it more difficult to get British citizenship.<\/p>\n

Burghart said the focus was not Reform UK, but trying to insert the policy into Labour’s draft immigration law when it returns to Parliament.<\/p>\n

“Of course we take the challenge from Reform very seriously,” Burghart said.<\/p>\n

“But it’s very important that we hold this failing government to account on the mistakes it is making.”<\/p>\n

A Reform UK spokesperson said: “Reform intends to win the next election, repair the damage caused by Johnson, the Tories and Labour.<\/p>\n

“We will then return Britain to greatness.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n


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Joshua Nevett Political reporter BBC Conservative shadow minister Alex Burghart has said there is “not a conversation to be had” about suggestions of an electoral pact with Reform UK. Appearing on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Burghart was asked whether he could see a pact happening, given some Conservative figures had proposed one in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":235145,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/bbcx\/grey-placeholder.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[603],"tags":[5464,2124,9697,1793,5098,4609,492],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235144"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235144"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":235146,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235144\/revisions\/235146"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}