Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage have both ruled out a future electoral pact (Image: GETTY)
Nigel Farage has scotched any lingering suggestions that he would be prepared to consider an electoral pact with Kemi Badenoch’s Conservative Party by declaring: “I just don’t trust them.”
The Reform UK leader, who has now flown to the United States for the inauguration of US President-elect Donald Trump, made his feelings plain on GB News after Ms Badenoch’s keynote speech earlier this week, in which she too ruled out working with his party.
Mr Farage, who previously posted on social media that at one point just 21 people were following the Tory leader on Facebook, said: “So she said a number of things in her speech this week that lasted for the best part of half an hour.
“It’s interesting. Looking online, all the media publications, they’ve all picked something different.
“Some have picked what she said on immigration. Someone picked up what she said about net zero.
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Kemi Badenoch speaks at the Institute of Directors on Thursday (Image: Getty)
“And I think my big criticism, not criticism, but comment, would be, there wasn’t one big clear message.
“Nothing really stood out. Nothing really punched in all of it, apart from saying we sort of got it all wrong early and didn’t prepare for Brexit.”
Mr Farage, speaking on Thursday, claimed the Tory Government of 2019 had “never really believed in Brexit”.
He explained: “A lot of people who voted Conservative in 2019 and gave Boris an 80 seat majority, listened to those things in 2019.
“A lot of people who voted for them in 2017, 2015 and 2010 believes in those things, to be let down again and again and again.
“I think this is her big problem. She said: ‘We made a mess of it. We understand that, we accept that we’re going to move on.’
“If you have a look at who’s running Number 10, if you have a look at who’s in the shadow cabinet, it’s the same people.
“If you get elected time and again promising to reduce net migration to tens of thousands and you give us a million in 2023, what are people supposed to think?”
Boris Johnson won an 80-seat majority in 2019 (Image: Getty)
Referring to former PM Boris Johnson’s landslide win, Mr Farage emphasised: “My problem is that I just don’t trust them. I helped them in 2019 considerably, standing aside in 320 seats.
“She did articulate some Conservative principles today but in very big, broad terms.
“But as soon as the Conservative party come down to actual policy, for example the European Convention Human Rights, you suddenly find the party is literally split down the middle.
“There are as many who would say the opposite [to Steve Barclay]. isn’t her problem as leader that, whatever her personal attributes or failings are, that the party is still fundamentally very split.”
Kemi Badenoch rules out Tory-Reform merger
Speaking to the Institute of Directors, Ms Badenoch said: “”The Conservative Party is under new leadership.
“From now on, we are going to tell the British people the truth, even when it is difficult to hear.
“The truth about the mistakes we made, the truth about the problems we face, and the truth about the actions we must take to get our country out of this mess.”
Mrs Badenoch said she did not feel sorry for Labour amid the criticism the new Government is facing.
She branded Sir Keir Starmer’s approach to grooming gang inquiries “legalism, not leadership”.
