One of Nigel Farage’s closest allies has suggested the Tories will merge with Reform UK after the next general election under Robert Jenrick’s leadership.
Gawain Towler, who began working for Mr Farage as a UKIP press officer in 2004 and sits on the Reform governing board, said Mr Jenrick and a handful of remaining Tory MPs would abandon the Conservative Party in favour of Reform.
Mr Towler, who was Reform’s director of communications until last year, said Mr Jenrick would not want to lead “a rump party”.
“This is not a man who’s gonna spend his time on trampolines and going down water flumes as a third party leader,” he said on the PopConversations podcast, in a swipe at Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey.
“I could possibly see him bringing a small handful over with him, but it could work, there are all sorts of ways,” Mr Towler added.
He said: “Could I see a situation where in a post electoral sort of devastation, that sort of post-apocalyptic landscape of the Conservative Party after the next general election, could I see a rump Tories becoming sort of like the Liberal Unionists in the 1890s, Jenrick as a sort of Joe Chamberlain bringing his raggle-taggle army over with him.
“I can’t see someone like Robert Jenrick wanting to be the leader of a rump party.”
The Liberal Unionists were a separate party which formed an alliance with the Conservatives in the 1890s before eventually merging completely in 1912.
Despite Mr Towler’s remarks, a Reform spokesman said: “Robert Jenrick will not be joining Reform UK”.
Mr Towler also suggested on the podcast that Reform is taking an open-door approach to Tory defectors, arguing that the party “has to win”.
Pollsters have warned Reform that it risks being tainted by being too closely associated with the Conservative brand after it accepted a slew of MPs and former ministers from the party.
Danny Kruger, who ran Mr Jenrick’s leadership campaign and served as Boris Johnson’s political secretary, last month became the first sitting MP to defect to Reform. He followed Nadine Dorries, one of Mr Johnson’s biggest backers, who joined the party and declared “the Tory party is dead”.
Mr Towler said: “There is that feeling from those of us who have been members a long time of what’s going on, why are we letting all these blighters in? They voted the wrong way, left, right, and centre. But there’s also a realisation.
“We have to win. We have to win. And we’re not going to win from the 40,000 members that were there at the general election in 2024.
“We’re now on almost 250,000 members. We passed 245,000 this week. Many of those will have been Tories.”
The Conservatives were asked to comment.
