‘Copy Trump to defeat Labour!’ Braverman doubles-down on Reform pact just days after refusing to rule out defection

The Fareham & Waterlooville MP claimed that the Tories should look to adopt Trump's brand of "unfiltered conservatism", adding that she wants to make the "unsayable mainstream".

Directly addressing the threat posed by her friend Nigel Farage, Badenoch told The Telegraph: “We do need to unite the Right. We need to come to some kind of accommodation.

"I don’t know what the precise form looks like – whether that is a merger, whether that is a coalition, whether that is a supply and confidence agreement, whether that is a non-aggression pact.

"I don’t know what it looks like.“In general, I am in favour of unifying the right.”

Braverman, who last week declined to rule out defecting to Reform UK, also highlighted that she agrees with Reform UK on its support for leaving the European Convention on Human Rights.

The 2022 Tory leadership hopeful was joined in Washington DC by her Reform-supporting husband Rael Braverman.

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The couple posed alongside Farage ahead of Trump's inauguration on Monday.

Discussing Trump's victory, Braverman said: “Donald Trump has not just shifted Overton window [a theory about what is politically acceptable], he’s shattered it.

"He’s made the unsayable mainstream and he’s made the radical much more acceptable to the moderates.

“That is of an undeniable value to British Right-wing politicians. There are many things that we can adopt going forward to hopefully emulate his success in a few years time in the United Kingdom.”

Braverman also slammed her Conservative colleagues for their attacks on Reform UK.

She claimed: "I’m not one of these Tories who is going to denigrate the Reform Party for running Nuremberg rallies [as] some of my colleagues did during the general election.

"I’m not going to turn my nose up at those who vote Reform as racists or nut jobs.

"The people who are in Reform are largely conservatives who have lost patience with our party and that’s our fault."

Despite Braverman extending an olive branch to Reform UK, Tory leader Kemi Badenoch and the populist party's chairman Zia Yusuf dismissed calls for an alliance on the right.

Addressing the threat to the right of the Tories, Badenoch said: "Nigel Farage says he wants to destroy the Conservative Party. Why on earth would we merge with that?"

Yusuf also downplayed talks of a merger - comparing the populist party joining forces with the Tories to Netflix merging with Blockbuster.

However, the latest YouGov poll paints a difficult picture for the Tories.

Labour retain top spot on 26 per cent, with Reform UK leapfrogging the Tories into second-place with 24 per cent of the vote.

Support for the Tories appears to have dropped slightly since the 2024 General Election, falling to as low as 22 per cent.