Kemi Badenoch has admitted that Nigel Farage could become prime minister at the next general election after the Conservatives’ dismal local election results.
Still reeling from her party losing 45 per cent of the council seats it was defending last week, the Tory leader was pressed by Laura Kuenssberg on the BBC over whether Mr Farage could enter Downing Street at the next general election.
She replied: “Anything is possible. We live in politically turbulent times. It is my job to make sure he doesn’t become prime minister.”
It came as health secretary Wes Streeting conceded that there is “a realignment” in British politics and quipped that deciding who will win between the Tories and Reform is “like Alien vs Predator, you don’t really want either one to win but one of them will emerge as the main challenger to Labour at the next general election”.
Speaking on Sky News’s Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips programme, Mr Streeting said: “I think Reform is definitely a real threat and one that we take seriously.
“I think there’s clearly, on the right of British politics, a realignment taking place.
“It’s not yet clear whether at the next general election it will be Reform or the Conservatives that are Labour’s main challenges, but we’ve got to take that threat seriously.
“In that spirit, I think Reform does deserve more air time and scrutiny of their policies.”
In her interview on the BBC, Ms Badenoch also insisted that “protest is in the air” and warned that “it will take longer than six months” to rebuild the damaged Tory party.
However, The Independent has revealed that Tory MPs are already plotting to replace her.
And her admission came after leading pollster Luke Tryl from More in Common told The Independent that the Conservatives have just 12 months to turn things around.
Highlighting how the Tories had been badly defeated in the heartland areas like Kent and Lincolnshire, he said: “I think they have until next year’s local elections, Holyrood elections and Senedd elections to show that they’re still relevant.”
Meanwhile, former Tory cabinet minister Justine Greening said that the results marked a point where the Tories needed to pivot and reinvent themselves.
She told Ms Kuenssberg: “This version of the Conservative Party, which we have seen over the last decade, which has tried to out Reform Reform, is finished and it will need to reinvent itself.”
But the only big success story for the Tories in last week’s election, new Peterborough and Cambridgeshire mayor Paul Bristow, urged Tory plotters to “just stop it” and said individuals in the party needed to “step up” and give Ms Badenoch time.
However, a former adviser to David Cameron, think tank “red Tory” boss Phillip Blond, has called for Ms Badenoch to go.
He posted on X (Twitter): “Our leadership post the GE has been astoundingly poor. All Badenoch has offered is inertia and inaction. She has allowed Reform to establish bulwarks on her flank that now look unbreachable,” adding, “Regrettably we do need a new leader, and this surely can only be Robert Jenrick. Reform can be challenged, but not under Badenoch. The alternative is doing nothing and becoming nothing.”
Mr Jenrick has appeared to have been on manoeuvres with a letter to all candidates which omitted Ms Badenoch’s name and a recording of a speech calling for a deal with Reform against party policy.
Nigel Farage claimed the Tories will “never recover” and Reform UK has “supplanted” them as the opposition to Labour after his party made sweeping gains in local elections.
Writing in the Telegraph, Mr Farage said two-party politics had “died” at a local and national level.
“The party that I lead is expanding. As we march on, the Conservatives are in retreat. In my opinion, they will never recover,” the Clacton MP said.
Meanwhile, Labour is still in shock from a dreadful set of results, which also saw them replaced in many parts of the country, such as County Durham, by Reform.
