Former Tory chairman warns Rishi Sunak against ‘playing footsie’ with Reform UK

Rishi Sunak has been warned against “playing footsie” with Reform UK following two bruising by-election defeats.

Former Tory chairman Chris Patten has urged the prime minister to ignore calls by some in his party to shift further to the right to see off the threat of the right-wing challenger party.

Conservative MPs have raised concerns that Reform UK may present a credible challenge to the Tories at the next election, after the party received double-digit shares of the vote during the Wellingborough and Kingswood by-elections.

A right-wing faction of MPs known as the “New Conservatives” have since called on the prime minister to “change course” and adopt more stringent policies on net-zero, immigration and lower taxation.

But Lord Pattern has now hit back at the infighting, saying the Conservative Party is “all over the place”.

“I think that one of the problems at the moment is that the Conservative Party is all over the place and there are bits of it that I don’t really identify with traditional conservatism,” he said. “The assault on institutions, the refusal to accept that attacking courts, lefty lawyers, or the rule of law, is not the way a Conservative Party should behave.”

The former Tory chairman added: “I think the Conservative Party is deluding itself if it thinks it can behave like this and still go on and win an election.”

But he also cautioned against the party chasing Reform voters: “The real danger of those results for the Conservative Party is because of the Reform Party getting 10 per cent, people will start saying, ‘oh well if we appeal to the Reform Party, we can just add their 10 per cent to ours’.

He added: “That is complete drivel. If the Conservative Party starts playing footsie with the Reform Party it won’t stand a prayer of winning the next election.”

The prime minister, who had sought to play down the losses as “difficult” mid-term elections, has called on right-wing and Conservative voters to unite to keep Sir Keir Starmer out of Downing Street.

Writing in the Telegraph, Mr Sunak said: “Later this year, we will have a general election that will decide who governs our country. I am confident that by then we will have made more progress, that the plan will be delivering the security and opportunity that people crave.

“At the next election, I will need the support of everyone who wants lower taxes and secure borders because the alternative, Keir Starmer, believes in neither of those things.

He added: “The Conservative family must come together to defeat Labour and ensure a brighter future for our country. A vote for anyone other than the Conservatives will just help Starmer.”

The Conservatives have blamed low turnout in both contests, which stood at just 37 per cent in Kingswood and 38 per cent in Wellingborough.

But Labour overturned majorities of 11,220 and 18,540 respectively, delivering the Government’s ninth and 10th by-election defeats of the current Parliament and securing its second-largest swing from the Tories ever.

Former Labour leader Neil Kinnock earlier said he was confident the party would win the next general election.

“I’m convinced now that we’re not going to lose,” Lord Kinnock told Sky News.