Kemi Badenoch says she would seek another election rather than govern with Reform UK

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said on 6 October that she would prefer another UK general election to governing with Reform UK if the next election leaves no party with an overall majority. Her answer, given in a BBC interview during the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham, sets out her position on a possible post-election deal with Nigel Farage’s party. It is a statement of preference about a future result, not a confirmed plan for a second vote.

What Badenoch said about a hung parliament

Asked whether she would work with Reform in government if the Conservatives were the largest party in a hung parliament, Badenoch told BBC Political Editor Chris Mason: ‘If you want Conservative, you have to vote Conservative. I have said we’d have another election if there was no overall majority.’ She predicted another election would follow a result in which no party secured a majority. Neither the result nor the response of other parties is known.

Badenoch has previously ruled out a deal with Reform before an election, according to the BBC. Her latest answer addresses the separate question of what she would want after an election without an outright winner. She said she wanted Reform voters to ‘come back’ to the Conservatives, describing Farage’s party as ‘neck deep in scandal’ and saying an alliance would be ‘just one problem after another’. Those descriptions are Badenoch’s characterisations.

Why a Conservative–Reform deal is being discussed

Badenoch said current polling suggested a hung parliament, but acknowledged the uncertainty of an election that has yet to take place. ‘Politics is volatile,’ she told the BBC. She argued that the Conservatives could win while adding: ‘I’m not saying that we would win.’ The reports do not provide a polling series or figures with which to independently assess her prediction of a hung parliament.

A different view came from former Conservative minister Jacob Rees-Mogg. The Independent reported that, at a conference fringe event, he supported a post-election coalition between the Conservatives and Reform if it prevented a left-wing government. When an audience of Conservative members was asked whether they would support such a deal in that circumstance, Rees-Mogg said anyone who had not raised a hand was ‘bonkers’. His comments illustrate a disagreement over the possibility; they do not change Badenoch’s stated position.

The Conservatives’ effort to rebuild after 2024

Badenoch is trying to present the Conservatives as different from the party that suffered what the BBC described as an historic defeat in 2024. At the conference, she published a document titled The Right Way setting out the party’s principles. She told the BBC the Conservatives were returning to what she called the ‘authentic Conservative Party’. The Independent reported that she said members felt happy because they knew who they were, while recognising that the party’s recovery was unfinished.

The conference also brought a change to a Conservative proposal aimed at younger workers. Badenoch proposed cutting the rate of employer National Insurance contributions on earnings for workers aged 21 to 24 from 15% to 7.5%. The Conservatives said the standard rate would apply to earnings above £50,270. It was a policy proposal, not a change to the tax employers currently pay.

The BBC reported that the party’s earlier ‘First Job Bonus’ proposal would have redirected the first £5,000 of National Insurance paid by young people in their first job into a savings account of their choice. The party had put its annual cost at £2.8bn. Badenoch said she was updating the policy because young people were struggling to get first jobs. A Labour spokesperson called the revised proposal ‘more fantasy economics from the Tories’; that is Labour’s response, not an independent assessment of its cost or effect.

What remains uncertain before the next election

The next UK general election must be held by August 2029, the BBC reported. Badenoch’s suggestion of another election immediately after a hung result depends on an election outcome that has not occurred. For now, the confirmed development is her public refusal to support a deal with Reform in the scenario put to her, while the Conservatives continue to argue over how to regain voters from Farage’s party.