The Conservatives and Reform UK are 70 per cent likely to merge or agree an electoral pact before the next general election, the most senior Conservative MP has said.
Father of the House, Sir Edward Leigh said that that if the Conservative Party don't come up with firm immigration policy, they will be "slaughtered" at the May local elections.
Leigh - a Conservative MP since 1983 - also said he did not know if Kemi Badneoch will be leading the part at the next general election.
He said: "I have no idea - I wish her well".
The Conservatives and Reform UK are 70 per cent likely to merge or agree an electoral pact before the next general election, the most senior Conservative MP has said
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Speaking to GB News' Chopper's Political Podcast, he said that the Tories had to agree "a full scale merger" or not compete in 100 seats where Reform is stronger to stop a Labour second term in power.
Asked about the odds of a merger between the Tories and Reform UK ahead of the 2029 election, he said: "Very high - 70 per cent. If not merger, a deal [of some sort]."
He said: "We can't just stand against each other in the first past the post system. So I would have at the very least an electoral alliance where we would stand down in 100 seats and let Reform take on Labour, or a full scale merger. And why not?"
Leigh said around a third of the party's 121 MPs now want a merger or a deal with Reform UK.
He said, "at a bare minimum" the MPs who backed Robert Jenrick in the Tory leadership campaign were in favour of doing a deal with Nigel Farage's party.
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He said: "I would have that at the bare minimum there would be 44, and if we are still in this bad place in a year or two's time it will be many more than that, may be half."
Leigh, who has been Tory MP for Gainsborough since 1983, said he would not defect to Reform UK.When he mentioned a merger to his colleagues Leigh said they often replied: "Let's give it a bit more time".
He said: "I think that is probably fair enough. But if we are still in this situation in a year or two's time we have got to do something".
Leigh said that the political logic of a merger or a deal was "absolutely inevitable", adding that "Kemi [Badenoch] would hope that Reform is a blip but it is not going to go away".
He added: "Reform policies don't go any further than I want to do. I want to have an absolute right to get out of the ECHR, arrest boat people when they land on our shores and deport them.
Father of the House, Sir Edward Leigh said that that if the Conservative Party don't come up with firm immigration policy, they will be "slaughtered" at the May local elections
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"And I want a zero cap on net legal migration, and there are loads of Tory MPs who agree with me.
"Our policies are absolutely identical and there is no point spending the next three or four years scrapping and then standing against each other in every single constituency and then Keir Starmer gets back into power with 30 per cent of the vote."
He said he was "absolutely furious" that the Tory Government had let in one million more people than left the UK in the party's last year in power.
Leigh said the party had to convince voters that the Tories were as strong as Reform UK in tackling legal migration.
He claimed he had told Badenoch and the whips that: "By May we have to come out with an absolute firm immigration policy otherwise we will be slaughtered in the May elections. I am saying that to the leadership".
That meant "getting out of any of these conventions that prevent us arresting people and deporting them", he said, adding: "Otherwise it is survival."
Asked if Badenoch will be leader at the next general election, Leigh said: "I have no idea - I wish her well. I have to say that going back through history we did burn through leaders after we lost badly in 1997 before we got to one who won."
Listen to Chopper's Political Podcast on Spotify, Apple podcasts or watch it on GB News' YouTube channel.
