Kemi Badenoch says Reform coalition would be 'monstrous' and blasts defectors as 'most dishonest people'
The Tory leader took aim at Nigel Farage during a conversation with LBC's Iain Dale
Kemi Badenoch has ruled out joining forces with Reform UK which she claimed would be "monstrous".
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The Conservative leader claimed a potential coalition deal with Nigel Farage would "put as many people off as it would gain".
Ms Badenoch also claimed defectors to Reform were among the "most dishonest people" she had ever met and claimed the party was UKIP "with different colours".
Speaking to LBC's Iain Dale at the Edinburgh festival fringe, she said: "Reform has people who left the Conservative Party, some of the most dishonest people I have ever met in my entire life.
Read more: Kemi Badenoch brands Reform 'woke' as she rejects coalition with Nigel Farage
"How do you join with them? How do you work with them? If you look at Reform, what is Reform? It's just UKIP with different colours. It's just people fighting all the time.
"Nigel Farage dictates what he wants depending on what he had for breakfast that day, and they're all over the place.
"They announce one policy, then they forget it the next day. How do I work with people like that when I'm making carefully curated plans and taking a systems-based approach, and they just want to say what's going to fly for the next 24 hours?
"How do you work with a man who has fallen out with with every single person that he's ever had to work with in every single party that he started? This is a triumph of hope over experience, I'm not going to do that."
But asked whether not working with Reform could mean a possible Labour and Liberal Democrat coalition if there were a hung parliament, Mrs Badenoch said a fresh election should be held instead.
Andy Burnham has previously ruled out the possibility of calling an early general election after Labour's landslide win in 2024.
The next election must be called by August 2029 but the Prime Minister can decide to hold one at any time before that date.
The Tory leader added: "We don't have to have a Labour-Lib Dem or whatever sort of rainbow coalition.
"I think that by the time there is another election, people will see that there is no more money left so I don't think that that's going to be the scenario.
"I think people will see that Labour's way was just to spend, spend, spend, and hope that things would work out.
"That's not a strategy. It's not a plan. But if there is another hung parliament where it's not decided, then I will go back out to the country and say there's only one sensible party of the right for those of you who want something on the right.
"That is the Conservative Party. What I want is a Conservative government, not a monstrous Reform Conservative hybrid which will actually put as many people off as it gains."
Asked to confirm if she could ever sit around a table with Robert Jenrick, she replied: "No, no, definitely not."
LBC has contacted Reform for comment.