Reform UK might have to choose between presenting itself as a new and radical political party or as a home for “disgruntled former Conservatives” who lost their seats at the election, James Cleverly has said.
Cleverly, the former home and foreign secretary, who stood to replace Rishi Sunak as Tory leader, also argued that Nigel Farage’s party could suffer if the councils it now runs struggle to properly manage key everyday services such as bin collections and social care.
Speaking at an event in Westminster organised by the Institute for Public Policy Research thinktank, Cleverly discounted the idea that he hoped to replace Kemi Badenoch, saying his party had to “get out of this habit of cycling through leaders in the hope that ditching this one and picking a new one will make life easy for us”.
Answering questions following a speech about how mainstream rightwing parties can take on the threat from populism, Cleverly noted the way that Reform had absorbed a series of former Tory MPs, most recently Jake Berry, the former party chair, who whose defection was announced last week.
“If their sales pitch is, ‘We’re not like the old political parties,’ but they are mainly populated with people from my political party, it’s going to be really hard for them to reconcile that sales pitch,” he said.
“So what are they? Are they new? Are they different? Are they exciting? Or are they a repository for disgruntled former Conservatives? It’s hard to maintain both angles.”
Asked if the defections were damaging for the Tories, Cleverly said it was “unsurprising that some people who are politically ambitious and remain politically ambitious look at the polling numbers and think their best future is to align themselves to the party that’s riding high in the polls”.
He added: “I don’t think it’s smart. I don’t think it’s right. I think people lose credibility, particularly people who were Conservative candidates very, very recently who then basically say, ‘Oh, you know the thing that made me realise I wasn’t really a Tory was being booted out of office by the electorate.’”
Since the local elections in May, 10 English councils are now run by often very inexperienced Reform groups. While Cleverly said it was possible they would manage the process well, he argued that failure would be noticed by voters.
“Local government is the bit of government people feel most instantly,” he said. “This is the bit of government that runs adult social care, their roads, their schools, their waste collection. When governments get stuff like that wrong, people notice and people respond.”
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Cleverly set out a broad policy pitch for the Conservatives similar to that of Badenoch, based around lower taxes and a smaller state, plus less regulation, reduced migration and more housebuilding, although he did argue that departure from the European convention on human rights, as raised by Badenoch, was not a “silver bullet” on migration and asylum.
But he urged patience, saying that while a year since the election felt like a long time to politicians, for most voters it was not, who still blamed his party over areas like migration.
He said: “The anger of the British people, the anger that they feel at this betrayal, is powerful and as Conservatives we shouldn’t kid ourselves that they’ve forgiven us yet, because they really haven’t.”
