What comes next? That is what many Tories are asking as they stare down the barrel of defeat. Even before Nigel Farage’s re-entry into the election campaign, most had privately conceded that the election was lost. An MRP/YouGov poll out yesterday suggested that the Tories are on course to win just 140 seats – the worst result in the party’s history. Penny Mordaunt, Grant Shapps and Jeremy Hunt are among those set to lose. If such a result came to pass, which of the survivors would be best placed to succeed Rishi Sunak and start the slow, painful process of building from such a meagre base?
‘Nigel Farage is still against many Conservatives,’ said Badenoch
Every contender is going to have to face a variation of the inevitable question: will you work with Nigel Farage? Kemi Badenoch, the Business Secretary, got an early taste of this yesterday when she was asked if she would be willing to serve under the former Ukip leader in the event he became Tory leader.
‘Nigel Farage is still against many Conservatives, including some of my colleagues,’ she replied. ‘What he wants to do is destroy the Conservative party.’ Badenoch continued:
‘The Conservative party is an institution; it is the longest-running party in the history of the world. I think that what we should be talking about is how to make sure it keeps going from strength to strength, not trashing it, destroying it, or taking it over.’
Her reply was a striking contrast with how other leading Conservatives have chosen to answer similar questions. Suella Braverman, Liz Truss, Simon Clarke and Robert Jenrick have all said that they would welcome Farage into their party. Jacob Rees-Mogg last month called on the Conservatives to make a ‘big, open and comprehensive’ offer to Reform by giving them ministerial posts. Even Rishi Sunak – the object of much Faragist ire – did not dismiss the proposal entirely out of hand, saying at the last party conference that ‘the Tory party is a broad church. I welcome lots of people who want to subscribe to our ideals, to our values.’
Successive membership polls suggest that Sunak’s own party grassroots would prefer Farage to be leading them rather than their current leader. In the event that a Tory leadership race went to a membership round, it is easy to imagine one of the two contenders making overtures to Farage, either publicly or privately. Whoever wins will likely inherit an angry and divided party, susceptible to repeated calls to ‘unite the right’ from a vocal commentariat for whom Farage serves as catnip. Many right-wing Tory MPs are certainly friendly with Farage; David Davis, Liz Truss and Mark Francois all attended his 60th birthday earlier this year. But for other Conservatives, his readmittance to the party would be a red line. ‘If he’s in, I’m out’, says a member of the One Nation Group of 100 Tory MPs. ‘And others would follow.’
Farage himself likes to blow hot and cold on the subject, sometimes suggesting he could rejoin his old party and other times hailing its destruction. ‘Never say never’, he told the BBC last October, adding: ‘If after the next election they reset and realign then I might.’ Nine months on, he now leads Reform and spurns all talk of pacts and deals. He says he can win more votes than the Tories and promises a five-year-leadership into the 2029 election. Yet given the current relative strength of the two parties, it seems highly likely that within days of a Conservative defeat on 4 July, there will be talk, once more, of Farage joining up with the Tories.
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