As if 2024 hadn’t been packed full of elections, eyes are already moving to next year’s local polls – and it seems some quite interesting conversations are taking place. According to Bloomberg, it transpires that Tory and Reform party branches in parts of the country have held discussions about working together in next year’s council elections to push out Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour lot. And so the plotting recommences…
According to reports, talks have included the idea that Conservative associations could stand down candidates in certain areas where Reform might be better placed to defeat Labour – while Nigel Farage’s lot would return the favour where the Tories stand a better chance. Officially, both the Tories and Farage’s Reform party are opposed to an electoral pact and as such this plan has not received the endorsement of those at the top of each party, with sources talking to Bloomberg on the condition of anonymity. How very curious.
There’s certainly not much love lost between the leaders of the two parties, with Nige today taking to Twitter today to blast Kemi Badenoch, writing:
I am watching the Tory backbenchers as Kemi Badenoch gives another average performance at PMQs. There is almost no enthusiasm for her at all. They are in much deeper trouble than they know.
In a later tweet, Farage added: ‘Kemi has no idea of what she is doing, no feel for the country and no presence of delivery.’ Ouch.
Not that the pair are strangers to a Twitter spat. On the eve of this year’s Conservative party conference, Farage made a rather scathing tweet about the now-Tory leader’s immigration stance, writing that he doesn’t ‘believe a word that [Badenoch] says on anything’. Hitting back, Badenoch told GB News’s Christopher Hope that Reform’s leadership are not ‘real conservatives’ or ‘serious people’. Crikey.
Could the two parties really manage to put their differences aside to oust Labour councillors in 2025? Watch this space…
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