Sunak instructed ‘taking part in footsie’ with Farage and Reform will trigger Tory wipeout

Rishi Sunak has been warned that “playing footsie” with Nigel Farage’s Reform UK will result in Tory wipeout by a former Conservative chairman.

The embattled Prime Minister is below strain after the Tories suffered two humiliating by-election defeats final week. Voters deserted the Conservatives in each Kingswood and Wellingborough, handing twin triumphs to Keir Starmer’s celebration. There was additionally an increase in help for Reform in each contests, with the Farage-founded outfit coming third in Wellingborough with 13% of the vote.

Mr Sunak is below strain from panicking right-wingers to see off the specter of Reform by shifting additional to the precise. But former Tory chairman Chris Patten stated chasing Reform voters would destroy the celebration’s electoral possibilities.

Lord Patten instructed BBC’s Westminster Hour: “I was chairman of the Conservative Party when there was a Conservative Party. And 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.

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

The Oxford University chancellor and peer warned his celebration towards chasing would-be Reform voters within the wake of the by-election defeats. He stated: “When you look at the fall in the Conservative vote in those by-elections, it was awful.

“The actual hazard of these outcomes for the Conservative Party is due to the Reform Party getting 10% individuals will begin saying, ‘oh properly if we attraction to the Reform Party, we will simply add their 10% to ours’. That is full drivel. If the Conservative Party begins taking part in footsie with the Reform Party it will not stand a prayer of profitable the subsequent election.”

Mr Sunak tried to play down the losses as “tough” mid-term elections – despite it actually being the final year of a five-year Parliament led by the Tories. He has made desperate pleas to right-wing and Conservative voters to unite to keep Keir Starmer out of No10 as Labour continues to lead in the polls.

Former Labour leader Neil Kinnock said he was confident the party would win the next general election and will probably be “neither 92 or 97”. “It’s going to be 24 as a result of each single election is totally different,” he told Sky News.

Pressed on whether Labour will win, he said: “I’m satisfied now that we’re not going to lose… I’ll go no additional than that.”

The Wellingborough by-election was triggered after constituents ousted former Tory MP Peter Bone following his suspension from the Commons for bullying and sexual misconduct. The contest in Kingswood came after ex-minister Chris Skidmore resigned in protest against Government legislation to boost North Sea oil and gas drilling.

The Conservatives highlighted the low turnout in both contests, which stood at just 37% in Kingswood and 38% 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.