Reform voters are ‘our people’, insists Badenoch

How to solve a problem like Reform? The Tories have been scratching their heads on the matter since their rather disastrous election result in July. And yet it appears that the Conservatives are, er, still pretty split on the best way forward.

Former Conservative leader John Major has told the Beeb that a move to the right in a bid to reel back Reform voters would be a mistake. He’s not alone, with many of the Tory leadership candidates also having expressed scepticism about a move to the right. James Cleverly has in the past warned his party not to do a ‘counter-productive’ deal with Farage, with GB News even reporting that a WhatsApp group chat named ‘James Cleverly for Leader’ featured comments warning against shifts to ‘Reform stances’ and the ‘extreme Right’. Tom Tugendhat has insisted he wants ‘to reform the Conservative party’, not to ‘become Reform’. Robert Jenrick stated pre-election how he ‘shares the frustrations’ of Tory voters moving to Reform – yet labelled