Nigel Farage rules out joining Conservatives and says he wants nothing to do with them
Nigel Farage has ruled out joining the Tory party saying he wants “nothing to do with them”.
Some Conservatives want the Reform UK leader to join their ranks to combat his rising popularity in the polls.
Election latest: Reform candidate disowns party amid racism row – and backs Tories
Mr Farage has previously told Sky News this was “not on my agenda” but did not categorically reject the idea when pressed repeatedly.
Speaking today to Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby, he said the party he currently leads is “a new political movement” and “I want nothing to do with them [the Conservatives]”.
Asked if that means he is ruling out joining, he said: “If you don’t work out that’s a yes, I don’t know what else I’ve got to say.”
Mr Farage has weaponised the Tory implosion and his primary argument at this election is that the Conservative Party is spent and needs replacing.
He wants his party to become the official opposition to an expected Labour government and ruled out any sort of electoral pact with the Tories, having agreed to one in 2019 to help Boris Johnson win seats.
Back then Reform UK was known as the Brexit Party – but Mr Farage says the Tories’ failure to cut immigration since leaving the EU has betrayed voters.
“They have no interest in the truth. For them, it’s all a game,” he told Beth Rigby.
“They’re awful, they are ghastly,” he added.
Mr Farage’s language goes further than an interview two weeks ago when he was also asked about joining the Tories.
He is making his eighth bid to become an MP, this time in Clacton in Essex, and while some polls project him to win, the UK’s first past-the-post voting system makes it difficult for Reform to make huge strides in a couple of elections.
Earlier this month Sky News’ deputy political editor Sam Coates asked him if the Tory party would be a better vehicle for his ambitions post-election and if he would rule out joining.
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Will Nigel Farage join the Tories?
Mr Farage said he could not see it happening and called the question “moronic”.
Pressed if that was a categorical rejection, he said he had “no intention” of joining the Tories but did not rule it out.
Read More: Farage sidesteps question about Tory switch
Some Tories want Mr Farage to join the fold to combat the threat of Reform UK, which is to the right of the Conservative Party.
Reform’s popularity in the polls surged after Mr Farage announced he would be taking over as leader and putting himself forward as a candidate in the election.
Former Home Secretary Suella Braverman and former immigration minister Robert Jenrick are in favour of him joining but the issue is divisive – with senior figures like Priti Patel, Kemi Badenoch and James Cleverly being against it.
After enjoying a relatively smooth start to his election campaign, Mr Farage has this week been embroiled in a race row after one of his campaigners was caught on camera using a racial slur to describe the prime minister – and one candidate has now defected to the Tories.
He has also faced a backlash for saying the West and NATO provoked Russia’s war in Ukraine
The other candidates standing in Clacton against Nigel Farage for Reform UK are:
• Matthew Bensilum, Liberal Democrats
• Craig Jamieson, Climate Party
• Tony Mack, Independent
• Natasha Osben, Green Party
• Jovan Owusu-Nepaul, Labour Party
• Tasos Papanastasiou, Heritage Party
• Andrew Pemberton, UKIP
• Giles Watling, Conservative Party
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The nascent real-world tokenized assets track prices but do not provide investors the same legal rights as holding the underlying instruments.
Rachel Reeves has hinted that taxes are likely to be raised this autumn after a major U-turn on the government’s controversial welfare bill.
Sir Keir Starmer’s Universal Credit and Personal Independent Payment Bill passed through the House of Commons on Tuesday after multiple concessions and threats of a major rebellion.
MPs ended up voting for only one part of the plan: a cut to universal credit (UC) sickness benefits for new claimants from £97 a week to £50 from 2026/7.
Initially aimed at saving £5.5bn, it now leaves the government with an estimated £5.5bn black hole – close to breaching Ms Reeves’s fiscal rules set out last year.
Read more:
Yet another fiscal ‘black hole’? Here’s why this one matters
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Rachel Reeves’s fiscal dilemma
In an interview with The Guardian, the chancellor did not rule out tax rises later in the year, saying there were “costs” to watering down the welfare bill.
“I’m not going to [rule out tax rises], because it would be irresponsible for a chancellor to do that,” Ms Reeves told the outlet.
“We took the decisions last year to draw a line under unfunded commitments and economic mismanagement.
“So we’ll never have to do something like that again. But there are costs to what happened.”
Meanwhile, The Times reported that, ahead of the Commons vote on the welfare bill, Ms Reeves told cabinet ministers the decision to offer concessions would mean taxes would have to be raised.
The outlet reported that the chancellor said the tax rises would be smaller than those announced in the 2024 budget, but that she is expected to have to raise tens of billions more.
It comes after Ms Reeves said she was “totally” up to continuing as chancellor after appearing tearful at Prime Minister’s Questions.
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Why was the chancellor crying at PMQs?
Criticising Sir Keir for the U-turns on benefit reform during PMQs, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said the chancellor looked “absolutely miserable”, and questioned whether she would remain in post until the next election.
Sir Keir did not explicitly say that she would, and Ms Badenoch interjected to say: “How awful for the chancellor that he couldn’t confirm that she would stay in place.”
In her first comments after the incident, Ms Reeves said she was having a “tough day” before adding: “People saw I was upset, but that was yesterday.
“Today’s a new day and I’m just cracking on with the job.”
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Reeves is ‘totally’ up for the job
Sir Keir also told Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby on Thursday that he “didn’t appreciate” that Ms Reeves was crying in the Commons.
“In PMQs, it is bang, bang, bang,” he said. “That’s what it was yesterday.
“And therefore, I was probably the last to appreciate anything else going on in the chamber, and that’s just a straightforward human explanation, common sense explanation.”
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