Dan Barker: Any talk of a Reform-Conservative pact means my former party sorting its ‘Liberal Democrat’ problem

Dan Barker is a former Conservative Party member, activist, candidate, and Association Chairman, but has moved to Reform. 

There are a growing number of senior figures in the Conservative Party publicly calling for some form of pact or alliance with Reform UK before the next election with the aim of ‘uniting the right’.  There has been, amongst others, former Conservative MP’s Jacob Rees-Mogg and Miriam Cates, who both suggested an agreement not to stand competing candidates in around 100 constituencies where Reform UK has a better chance of taking a seat off Labour.

Backbench MP Esther McVey has also called for a pact at the next election.  Very recently the most senior Conservative MP and Father of the House, Sir Edward Leigh, told GBNEWS’ Chris Hope that the likelihood of a merger is: ‘70% before the next election’.  This was swiftly rebutted by Reform UK Chairman Zia Yusuf as being 0%.  Notice that all these calls are coming exclusively from Conservatives.

In response, the leadership of Reform have been consistent and unequivocal: there will be no deals.

Speaking as someone who is active in Reform UK, a former Mayoral and parliamentary candidate, activist and Branch Chairman I am on several local, regional and national groups.  I can confirm that it is not just the leadership that is not seeking a merger with the Conservative Party.  The mood music amongst the grass roots is also a firm ‘no thanks’.  In fact, no-one is talking about or speculating on the merits or otherwise of any sort of tie-up with the Conservatives.

So, sorry to burst the bubble, but I think it is safe to conclude that this side of a General Election – it is not going to happen.

But I have a question for all those Conservatives who are calling for a pact with Reform UK: If you are serious about ‘uniting the right’, then what may I ask are you going to do about your Liberal Democrat problem?

When I say Liberal Democrats, what I mean is the faction that call themselves ‘One Nation Tories’ (Thatcher’s ‘Wet Liberals’) who are aligned politically with the Liberal Democrats somewhere left of centre and possibly left even of the current Starmer Cabinet.  They are arguably the single faction within the Conservatives most responsible for the party’s historic decline and ineptitude.  They are the dominant faction in the party and have chosen or heavily influenced the selection of many of the recent leaders and prime ministers.  They proudly describe themselves as ‘radically liberal’ – whatever that means – it doesn’t sound conservative in the slightest.  Perhaps it is this very same ‘radical liberalism’ that is to blame for Net Zero, mass immigration on steroids, the bloated state, historically high taxes, the wokery and the war on freedom of speech that has prospered and flourished under the last 14 years of successive Conservative governments?

With Reform starting to top poll after poll, ahead of the Tories and Labour and within reach of a few percentage points of achieving enough votes, if there were an election tomorrow, to gain an outright majority of seats, talk by Nigel Farage and others of forming the next Government is not wishful thinking but becoming a realistic prospect.

So my question as a former Conservative Party member and Association Chairman who like so many others has defected to Reform, is that if the Conservatives are so keen to ‘unite the right’, perhaps they should first get their own house in order and face up to the fact that at least half of their number would be more at home in the Liberal Democrats or even the Labour Party.

Until they figure out how they are going to square that circle, I think any talk of an alliance or pact with Reform is for the birds.