Kemi Badenoch has launched a blistering attack on former Conservatives who defected to Reform, calling some of them “the most dishonest people I have ever met in my entire life” and ruling out welcoming them back into the party.
The Conservative leader also rejected any prospect of an electoral pact or coalition with Farage’s party, saying she’d rather see Britain return to the polls than help form what she called a “monstrous Reform-Conservative hybrid” government. Speaking at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Badenoch said the Conservatives must try to win the next election on their own terms rather than attempting to reunite the political right. Her comments targeted the growing number of former senior Conservatives who’ve crossed over to Reform, including Suella Braverman and Robert Jenrick, landing as Reform faces renewed internal tensions of its own, while the Conservatives remain well behind both Labour and Reform nationally.
‘Some of the most dishonest people I have ever met’
Asked about MPs and senior figures who’ve left for Reform, Badenoch didn’t hold back. “Reform has people who left the Conservative Party, some of the most dishonest people I have ever met in my entire life.” She accused some defectors of abandoning the party when it was at its weakest, having themselves been part of the governments and leadership teams that contributed to its collapse in support in the first place: “These are people who left us when we were at our lowest, many of them the people who caused the problems in the first place and then ran away and pretended they had nothing to do with it. Why should we have them back?”
She also said she didn’t want “drama queens” returning to the party and made clear she has no interest in indirect approaches from former defectors who might now be reconsidering.
Jenrick and Braverman among the major defectors
Jenrick and Braverman are two of the most prominent Conservative figures to have joined Reform. Jenrick left the Conservatives earlier this year after being sacked by Badenoch, who accused him of plotting against her leadership, and has since described his former party as “rotten” and “failed.” Braverman, a former home secretary, has taken a prominent role promoting Reform’s policies since her own move.
Badenoch didn’t say every defector was dishonest, but her comments clearly targeted senior former Conservatives now helping Farage build Reform into a rival force on the right. They also land amid reports Braverman has recently been considering her own position inside Reform.
No deal with Farage
Badenoch also shut down speculation about a future pact between the Conservatives and Reform. With the right-wing vote split between the two parties, there’s been repeated speculation they could eventually cooperate before or after an election. Badenoch says that won’t happen, arguing Reform is too unpredictable to be a credible partner: “Nigel Farage dictates what he wants depending on what he had for breakfast that day.” She accused the party of announcing policies then abandoning them, calling it “all over the place,” and said her own approach is built around a carefully planned Conservative programme, questioning how she could work with a party she regards as fundamentally unstable.
She took a direct personal swipe at Farage too, asking how anyone could work with “a man who has fallen out with every single person he has ever had to work with in every single party that he has started.”
Badenoch says she’d rather have another election
Asked what she’d do if the next election produced a hung parliament, Badenoch said she’d prefer another election entirely rather than a coalition with Reform, calling a Conservative-Reform administration a “monstrous Reform-Conservative hybrid” and insisting there’d be “no deals” before or after polling day. “If we get a hung parliament and people see that the parties can’t form a government, you have another election.” She said her aim isn’t to “unite the right” but to build a Conservative Party capable of winning support nationally: “I want us to unite the country. It is not about uniting the right, it is about uniting our country.”
The Conservatives are still trailing Reform
The problem for Badenoch is straightforward: the Conservatives remain behind Farage’s party. An Ipsos voting intention poll cited by the Guardian put Labour on 28%, Reform on 25%, the Conservatives on 18%. That leaves Badenoch trying to rebuild the Tory vote while directly competing with a party that’s recruited some of the Conservatives’ most recognisable former ministers.
Reform has made substantial gains in England and Wales over the past year and played a real role in the political pressure that eventually contributed to Starmer’s resignation as Labour leader and prime minister. Burnham has since taken over in Downing Street, and Labour’s polling position has improved considerably since. That leaves Badenoch fighting a genuinely difficult three-way contest, recovering voters from Reform without making a deal with Farage, while also closing a significant gap with Labour at the same time.
Reform’s internal rows give the Tories an opening
Badenoch’s attack lands at a moment when Reform itself is dealing with a series of public disputes. Tim Montgomerie has been suspended after criticising Farage and Zia Yusuf, while fresh reporting has suggested tensions involving other senior figures too, and Braverman herself has reportedly been weighing up her position.
For Badenoch, those rows offer a genuine opportunity to argue that defecting to Reform was a mistake and that Farage’s party isn’t ready for government. Her language at the Edinburgh Fringe suggests she has little interest in leaving the door open for anyone who might want to return.
The message was unusually explicit: those who left for Reform shouldn’t assume they’ll be welcomed back, and if the Conservatives and Reform together fall short of a majority at the next election, Badenoch says she’d rather ask the country to vote again than put Farage anywhere near government.
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