Reform leader rules out lifeline for Sunak

REFORM UK party leader Richard Tice has slammed the door shut on any pact to save the Tories at the next general election.

Mr Tice told The Mail on Sunday: ‘They can offer me five million quid and a peerage, and the answer is still “No!” The Tories broke their contract with the British people and they have to be kicked out.’

The unequivocal declaration came amid evidence that the Conservatives could have avoided last week’s by-election defeats if Right-wing rival Reform had not fielded candidates. Reform’s vote in both Mid-Bedfordshire and Tamworth was bigger than Labour’s majority in both constituencies.

Formerly led by Nigel Farage, Reform has already vowed to field candidates in 630 seats at next year’s general election – potentially posing a dire threat to the Tories.

But Mr Tice last night dismissed any suggestion that his party would simply pave the way to Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour becoming the next government. He said: ‘To anyone who says that Reform will just be letting in Labour, I say there’s no difference between the two of them. The Tories and Labour are two forms of socialism: high tax, high regulation, low growth and pro net zero. It’s all a catastrophe for the country.’

After the by-election results on Friday, Mr Tice taunted the Tories about how his party had cost them their victory. Writing on X, he said this was ‘despite huge squeeze/ pressure from Tories to voters, saying do not vote Reform’.

But Alexander Stafford, Tory MP for Rother Valley, said: ‘It is nonsense to suggest that Tories and Labour are the same. A re-elected Tory government will complete Brexit after the general election. Sir Keir Starmer’s

Labour would wreck it.’