‘All marriage plans are off’ says Farage as he rejects calls to rejoin Tories

Nigel Farage has said “all marriage plans are off” as he rejected Suella Braverman’s calls for him to rejoin the Conservative Party.

The Reform leader insisted he would not join the Conservatives “at the moment” after the former home secretary declared that she would “welcome” him into the Tory fold.

Mrs Braverman insisted the Tories and Reform had to find a way to work together in the future amid forecasts that the popularity of Mr Farage’s party could cost the Conservatives dozens of seats.

She told The Times: “I would welcome Nigel into the Conservative Party. There’s not much difference really between him and many of the policies that we stand for.”

But when asked about her remarks on Monday, Mr Farage told the PA news agency: “Well, look, I mean Suella Braverman said I should rejoin the Conservatives because our policies are very similar. I don’t think so, I don’t think so.

“What they’ve done, allowing nearly two-and-a-half million people to settle in the country in the last two years, is most certainly not our policy.

“So I do like her, I do admire her, but I’m afraid at the moment all marriage plans are off.”

Mrs Braverman is on the Tory Right and has called on Rishi Sunak to “change course” on issues including the tax burden, migration and Britain’s membership of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

Polling shows as many as a quarter of those who backed the Conservatives in 2019 now plan to vote for Reform, which has outflanked the Tories on net zero and immigration policy.

Both Mr Farage and Richard Tice, the chairman of Reform, have spoken of their wish to “destroy” the Conservatives and lead a realignment of the British political Right.

Tory MPs are split on whether Mr Farage, who was a Tory member between 1978 and 1992, should be welcomed back into their ranks.

Kemi Badenoch, the Business Secretary and the bookmakers’ favourite to succeed Mr Sunak as leader, has dismissed him as a “showbusiness candidate”.

Asked about the prospect of admitting him in the future, she told the Daily Mail: “Will Mr Farage be there when we’re doing all of those less glamorous issues, doing public meetings about pylons and potholes?

“[There’s] so much which we have been doing, while Farage has just been laughing and mocking.”

It came after Mr Farage used a press conference in central London on Monday to offer Tory MPs the chance to defect after the party secured an “electoral beachhead” at the election.

He singled out Mrs Braverman and Robert Jenrick, who served as her immigration minister, as Tory MPs he would like to see cross the floor.

Asked about what was likely to happen to the Tories should they lose the general election, Mr Farage predicted an escalation of the “very public civil war” he said had characterised the party in recent years.

“I can’t even imagine the level of recrimination that the level is going to descend into. Therefore the answer is quite straightforward.

“Once we have established the electoral beachhead for Reform in the House of Commons, then, of course, I will say to Suella Braverman and Robert Jenrick ‘we would love to have you in our party’. We look forward to it very much indeed.”

Lord Frost has also said that the Conservatives should do a deal with Mr Farage after the election. 

Delivering a speech on Monday, the former Cabinet minister said that a new Tory party would need to emerge from an election defeat.

He said that the Tories had become “too social democratic” under Rishi Sunak and that they needed to “recapture the spirit of the Boris manifesto”.

“We are going to need to build a new movement, a ‘reformed Conservatism’ that can bring true conservatives from all sides together after the election,” he said.  

“Not a new party, but a movement within but also beyond the Conservative Party, of people who want to build a new, changed, successful country on conservative principles.

“Of course we must be ready to work with Nigel Farage when this is over, and anyone else who shares conservative ideas.”

A constituency-level poll by Survation last week projected Reform is on track to secure three seats, while a YouGov pollster has suggested Mr Farage’s return to front-line politics means it could now win in up to four constituencies.

Lee Anderson, a former deputy chairman of the Conservative Party, became Reform’s first MP in March when he defected following a row over comments he made about Sadiq Khan that led to him being stripped of the Tory whip.