Pro-Brexit Reform UK party vows to contest every Conservative seat in next election

The pro-Brexit Reform UK party yesterday ruled out a pact with the Conservatives at the next election, saying it will field a candidate against every Tory MP.

Reform UK emerged in 2021 from Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party which had agreed not to stand in Tory-held seats at the 2019 election, helping Boris Johnson to achieve a landslide win.

Its ‘cast-iron guarantee’ that it will challenge for every seat next time piles more pressure from the Right on PM Rishi Sunak. Reform leader Richard Tice, who took over from Mr Farage in March 2021, gave a speech yesterday to re-launch the party. He said Reform already has 600 candidates ready to contest seats across the country in 2024.

Reform UK emerged in 2021 from Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party which had agreed not to stand in Tory-held seats at the 2019 election, helping Boris Johnson to achieve a landslide win

Branding the Conservative Government high-tax ‘Consocialists’, Mr Tice told supporters that ‘the Tories have broken Britain, they have literally wrecked our country’.

He said: ‘What works in broken Britain? Public services? The NHS? Railways? Royal Mail? Border Force? What’s really working? Immigration – completely out of control … This Government has utterly failed – they’ve broken Britain and the Opposition has no solutions.’ 

He railed against the UK’s record tax burden and the number of Britons on benefits as he demanded the Government ‘make work pay’, and called for ministers to make better use of the nation’s ‘energy treasure’. 

On immigration, he said: ‘Surely one of the most important things that a Government can do is maintain secure borders – to know who’s coming in and who’s going out.

The Tories will be concerned that support for the Right-wing party could split the vote and allow Labour to win crucial seats. The PM is pictured above yesterday

‘They kept saying that one of the Brexit advantages was to take control of our borders. Now the Tories have completely abandoned it.’

Reform have enjoyed a boost in the polls since Mr Sunak became Prime Minister, jumping from 3 per cent up to 8 per cent in a survey last week. In many polls it is narrowly behind the third-placed Liberal Democrats. Mr Tice claimed that the Tories were ‘worried’ and that Reform was ‘gaining all the time’.

The Tories will be concerned that support for the Right-wing party could split the vote and allow Labour to win crucial seats.

However, they are likely to be relieved after Mr Tice confirmed that Mr Farage will not return to lead the party as he is focused on his media career. Mr Tice insisted: ‘We’ve already got 600 candidates – we will stand everywhere. I think people are starting to realise that we’re serious about this.

‘Some people have ignored us until now, but we’ve got momentum.’