How Reform and the Conservatives could be FORCED into an alliance even though Kemi AND Farage don’t want it

A RARE moment of agreement occurred between Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch yesterday when both concurred they couldn’t stand each other.

When hares were set running of a possible Reform–Tory alliance, their party leaders quickly strangled the life out of them.

Farage was adamant: “After 14 years of dishonesty and lies they should never be forgiven. The idea I’d work with them is ludicrous.”

Badenoch’s spokesman was similarly blunt: “Absolutely, 100 per cent, categorically no. There will be no pact.”

So that’s that then, case closed. Finito. Nigel says no, Kemi says no. Everyone says no. But what if the numbers say yes?

The most recent YouGov seat projection from September showed Reform falling just 15 shy of an overall majority with 311 MPs, with the Tories mashed to a miserable rump of 45.

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Extraordinary political times

On that poll, the notion of Farage even entertaining a pact looks absurd: better surely to go for broke then strike any coalition deal after an election when the dust settles.

But if a week is a long time in politics, then the four years until Polling Day is an age in which the scales could tip towards a negotiated peace.

In the past few months, Badenoch has found her feet with a series of punchy performances that look to be bearing fruit in the court of public opinion.

She looks to be cutting through with voters and creeping up in the polls.

Sir Keir Starmer, meanwhile, is lurching to the Left in a blatant bid to unite the “progressive” block against Reform.

We live in extraordinary political times where five parties are bunched relatively tightly in the polls.

While Reform boasts a lead of up to 30 per cent, it could fall under a first-past-the-post system that ruthlessly punishes splits. If the Left votes tactically, as they did in the Caerphilly by-election, Reform and the Tories risk being swallowed up if they are busy bleeding votes to each other.

Nearer election time, the pressure to “unite the Right” will only grow.

There are countless reasons why a Reform-Tory agreement could never happen, but also countless more why it might.

Despite Farage and Badenoch tearing lumps out of each other, their supporters are clear their true nemesis is Starmer.

Asked in a recent More In Common poll who they would vote against at a general election, 80 per cent of Reform supporters said Labour, while only five per cent said the Tories.

Likewise, 59 per cent of Conservative voters see Starmer as public enemy No1 compared to 18 per cent who pick Reform.

Both sets of voters would therefore not need much convincing to get behind whichever shade of blue rosette was best placed to stop a Labour victory.

Not to mention how Reform and the Tories occupy virtually the same political space. Both have pledged to cut taxes, leave the ECHR, bin Net Zero and slash the welfare bill.

They have parted ways on the two-child benefit cap, with Farage supporting its abolition for working families.

It has given Badenoch some clear blue water with Reform but it is unlikely to be a pressing issue on the ballot paper.

Both sets of voters would therefore not need much convincing to get behind whichever shade of blue rosette was best placed to stop a Labour victory

It is not as if Farage favours dishing handouts to every sofa-sponger. As he recently told me: “Do I think it should be for those that aren’t working? Do I think it should be for foreign migrants, some communities of which have ten kids or more? No, I don’t.”

Farage would insist he means what he says, whereas the Tories talk the talk but failed to walk it in 14 years in power. But that argument is starting to fray as he welcomes more Conservative defectors.

There are those who dismiss the prospect of a Reform-Tory pact on the grounds both sides have denied one. Yet politicians jettisoning hand-on-heart promises when it becomes inconvenient is a staple of our democracy.

After all, Starmer was a Corbyn-supporting, EU-loving, tuition fee-axing socialist until it came to election time.

A well-framed argument that Reform and the Tories are willing to do business in the “national interest” of ejecting Labour would be a relatively easy sell.

And if megabucks right-wing donors, who are increasingly anxious about the prospect of a second Labour term, grease the wheels of a deal then all the better.