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‘There is not space for two Conservative parties’: Suella Braverman calls for Tory election pact with Reform
14 January 2025, 17:19 | Updated: 14 January 2025, 19:14
Suella Braverman has admitted she would be open to a coalition between the Conservatives and Reform UK in order to take down Labour at the next general election.
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The former home secretary said “there’s not enough room for two Conservative parties” based on recent polling and that the parties would need to come together to reach an overall majority.
The Conservatives had their worst ever performance in last year's general election, winning just 121 seats, and much of this could be attributed to the rise of Reform, who won over 14% of the votes.
Suella Braverman on the possibility of partnering with Reform UK
While taking calls on LBC, Ms Braverman said: "If you look at this last poll, if you take the collective vote share of the Conservatives and Reform we're approaching 50%.
“You can't win an election outright on 25% and ultimately I'm someone who really does think we should do whatever it takes to stop another Labour administration and if there is territory for agreement or a coalition...I would support it."
She added: “At some point a serious conversation needs to be had (but) there's not enough space in British politics for two Conservative parties."
A recent YouGov poll suggests Reform has grown in support to within one percentage point of Labour.
The data collected over the weekend puts Labour on 26%, Reform on 25% and the Conservatives on 22%.
This is a major change from the general election, when Labour was on 35%, Conservatives on 24% and Reform on 15%.
Ms Braverman admitted that it was the Tories' fault for allowing the rise of Reform given their stance on certain policies.
She said: "I've been warning for some time about the severe threat the Conservative party faces at the moment.
"We have been hurt by the Reform party because their success has been meteoric in a very short space of time and much of our defeat was because of Reform.
"This is our fault, the Conservatives failed to tackle immigration, we failed to cut taxes, we failed to stand up for common sense patriotic values and it's our fault that Reform has risen so exponentially."
Aside from the motivation of defeating Labour at the next election, Ms Braverman advocated a coalition given the extent of overlap between the parties' policies and values.
She said: “There's a lot of stuff that Reform talks about that I agree with.
"I’m a very strong advocate for leaving the European Convention on Human Rights, their policy approach on law and order, net migration.
“I agree with that, many of my members agree. many members of the Conservative party agree with that so there is a lot of overlap.”
Former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith distanced himself from the idea of a tie-up with Reform.
He told LBC: "To talk about mergers at this stage when one of the parties you might want to merge with is intent on destroying the Conservative party, it seems to me to be very difficult to go to your would-be executioner and say 'do you think we could do a deal over this?'
"The Conservative party has to battle for the right-of-centre vote. If Mr Farage and others want to get in on that, it's up to them to come and talk to us".
