Kemi Badenoch rules out a Tory deal with 'woke' Reform UK as she swipes at 'moaning and whingeing' of Nigel Farage's party

By GREG HEFFER, POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT Published: 12:53, 6 August 2026 | Updated: 12:53, 6 August 2026 Kemi Badenoch has again ruled out a pact with Reform UK as she branded Nigel Farage's party 'woke'. The Tory leader hit out at 'moaning and whingeing' by Reform as she accused them of pursuing 'victim narratives' and 'grievance'. She said she would not strike a deal with Mr Farage to 'unite the Right' because she is 'trying to unite the country'. Mrs Badenoch added she did not want the public to be 'confused about what this Conservative Party stands for'. The latest YouGov poll showed Reform on 23 per cent support, Labour on 22 per cent and the Tories on 19 per cent. There have been calls by some for the Tories and Reform to agree a pact in order to stop Labour from winning another term in office. Mr Farage this week said he was 'open-minded' about holding talks with Restore Britain following an offer from Rupert Lowe's outfit to 'unite the Right' and take on Labour. But, speaking to the Political Currency podcast, Mrs Badenoch made clear she would not be doing any deal either before or after the next general election. Kemi Badenoch has again ruled out a pact with Reform UK as she branded Nigel Farage's party 'woke' The Tory leader said she would not strike a deal with Mr Farage to 'unite the Right' because she is 'trying to unite the country' Your browser does not support iframes. 'Reform are a woke party,' the Tory leader said. 'And I know a lot of people don't understand, the word woke is used to mean many things, a lot of people assume it's a Left-wing thing. 'But when I talk about woke, I talk about people who, it's all grievance, it's victim narratives, people are doing this to us, oppressor narratives, this is the oppressor class. 'On the Left it's whites are the oppressors or men are the oppressors, on the Right it's the establishment are the oppressors, look at what they're doing to us. 'It's all moaning and whingeing and not proper solutions. It's about power dynamics and how to get power, not actually solutions and how to fix things.' Describing a deal as a 'non-starter', she added: 'I don't see how I could possibly have people like that in some form of coalition.' Mrs Badenoch went on: 'I'm not trying to unite the Right, I'm trying to unite the country. You can't run the country with just one half of it.' Mr Farage is currently fighting what he has described as a 'people versus the establishment' by-election in Clacton, after he resigned as the local MP amid scrutiny over his receipt of a £5million gift from crypto-billionaire Christopher Harborne before he was elected in 2024. The Reform leader himself has also previously rejected talk of a pact, saying he wants to replace the Conservatives. Responding to Mrs Badenoch's comments on Thursday, Reform's home affairs spokesman Zia Yusuf appeared to reference a row over the Tories' selection of a former neo-Nazi as a local election candidate.  'Look, you know, I don't think Kemi's had the best few days, and she's obviously lashed out at Reform and started calling us names,' he said. 'She said that we're a party that has grievances. I would agree with that. We do have a grievance. 'We have a grievance with the fact that they spent 14 years lying to the British public.  They said they'd reduce legal immigration down to the tens of thousands.' Mr Yusuf added: 'The Tories are responsible for the majority of the illegal boats that have come to this country, the majority of the illegal migrants. 'No British government has paid the French more to 'stop the boats' than the Tories.  'The whole thing is absurd... and that is why I maintain my view that the Tories, as of the next general election, will no longer be a serious and credible national political party.' A Reform source added: 'According to Kemi, being woke apparently means not having neo-Nazis in your party.' Joshua Bonehill-Paine withdrew as a Tory council candidate on Wednesday night after Jewish groups expressed their outrage at his selection by the party. He had been selected to fight the Crewkerne South ward in Somerset for the Conservatives next May. But he will no longer contest the ward for the Tories, saying in a social media post that he needed to 'show the Jewish community how much I regret my previous actions'. He was jailed in 2016, after he was convicted of racially aggravated harassment against Baroness Luciana Berger, who is Jewish. Bonehill-Paine wrote several blog posts about the peer, who was Labour MP for Liverpool Wavertree at the time, in which he described her as 'an evil money-grabber' with a 'deep-rooted hatred of men'. In one post, he claimed the number of Jewish Labour MPs was a 'problem'. He was previously jailed for producing an advert for a neo-Nazi rally illustrated with a picture of Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz which promised 'an absolute gas'. Mrs Badenoch, who had earlier defended allowing Bonehill-Paine to stand as a party candidate, said she was 'sad' that he 'won't be given the space to explain his position and represent his community'.  She added that Bonehill-Paine would now work with the Conservatives on tackling radicalisation as part of the party's culture and integration commission.