Nigel Farage has rubbished rumours of an electoral pact between Reform UK and the Conservatives ahead of the next general election.
“I would never do a deal with a party I don’t trust. No deals, just a reverse takeover,” he said.
“A deal with them as they are would cost us votes.”
The Reform UK leader suggested that, after the local elections in May 2026, the Conservatives will “no longer be a national party”.
In turn, the Conservatives were similarly definitive.
A Tory spokesman said: “Reform want higher welfare spending and to cosy up to Putin. Only the Conservatives have the team, the plan, and the backbone to deliver.”
It follows claims that Mr Farage had privately told donors that an alliance with the Conservatives was “inevitable”.
“They will have to come together. The Conservatives have been a successful political party forever because the left was always divided … If the right is divided, it can’t win,” a Reform UK donor told the Financial Times.
FOLLOW BELOW FOR LIVE UPDATES THROUGHOUT THE DAY…
Government ‘keeping an eye on situation with the farmers’ following Commons rebellion
Government ‘keeping an eye on situation with the farmers’ following Commons rebellion
| GB NEWS
Health Secretary Wes Streeting has told GB News that the Government is “keeping an eye on situation with the farmers” after Labour MPs rebelled during a Commons vote of the Family Farm Tax.
The policy will see farmers slapped with a 20 per cent tax on farm estates worth more than £1m from April, drawing national outrage and multiple protests in the capital.
In the vote last night, Labour’s vote collapsed from 371 in the first vote on the tax hike, a reduction by 44 votes to 327.
Dozens of Labour MPs appear to have abstained from the vote. One backbencer, borders MP Markus Campbell-Savours, joined Conservative members in voting against the measures.
Speaking to The People’s Channel, Mr Steeting admitted there was “a lot of anxiety” around the Family Farm Tax.
Defending Chancellor Rachel Reeves, he said she had “already made some adjustments to the package”.
The Health Secretary assured that the Government valued the farming community and that they were “part of our national resilience”.
Robert Jenrick slams Kier Starmer and David Lammy for abolishing jury trials: ‘They don’t trust ordinary people!’
Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick has slammed Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his opposite number, David Lammy, for the decision to drop jury trials in all but the most serious cases.
Mr Lammy announced the move to help clear the backlog in the court system. Under the new plans, all but cases of rape, murder, aggravated burglary, blackmail, people trafficking, grievous bodily harm and the most serious drug offences will not be decided by a jury.
“You’ve got a right that we’ve enjoyed in this country to a jury trial for at least 800 years, perhaps even longer than that. It goes back to Magna Carta being tossed aside by Keir Starmer and David Lammy because of administrative failure by the Ministry of Justice,” Mr Jenrick told GB News.
“Of course, we’ve got to get the backlog of cases in the courts down. It’s wrong that someone is being asked to wait 4 or 5 years for a trial,” he added.
Mr Jenrick claimed: “You fix it by getting the court sitting round the clock, and you can do that.”The Shadow Justice Secretary hit out at the Government’s “wrong priorities” for failing to fund such adjustments, instead: “Rachel Reeves is able to find £16 billion out of our taxes for benefits, billions for illegal migrants who broken into the country on small boats.”
“Lammy and Keir Starmer and others want to get rid of jury trials because fundamentally, they don’t trust ordinary people,” he told The People’s Channel.
Robert Jenrick launches scathing attack on David Lammy over jury trials and mistaken prison releases
Health Secretary ‘genuinely worried’ about consequences of Christmas doctors’ strikes
Health Secretary Wes Streeting had admitted he is ‘genuinely worried’ about the consequences of planned doctors’ strikes in the lead up to Christmas.
His comments come as it was announced that resident doctors, the new name for junior doctors, will stage a five-day walkout from December 17 to 22.
Speaking about the potential impact on patients, Mr Streeting said he did not want “to sound catastrophic about it”, but admitted he was “genuinely worried” about the situation.
The Health Secretary said the timing of the strikes was a “different order of magnitude of risk”.
The planned industrial action is over a long-running pay dispute, with resident doctors demanding a further pay rise despite receiving nearly 30 per cent extra last year.
Wes Streeting calls Putin’s ‘ready for war’ bluff as ‘same old sabre rattling’
Wes Streeting called Russian President Vladimir Putin’s comments that Moscow is “ready” for war with Europe as the “same old sabre rattling”.
Yesterday, President Putin said if Europe “wants to wage a war with us and starts it, we are ready right away” as he rejected changes proposed by Ukraine and Europe to a US-backed draft peace plan as unacceptable.
“I think we should see this for what it is, which is the same old sabre rattling we’ve heard from President Putin,” the Health Secretary said.
“And the irony of President Putin talking about warmongering on the part of European leaders would be laughable if what he’s doing in Ukraine weren’t so serious,” he told Sky News.
However, Mr Streeting stressed that the Government “take the threat from Russia seriously”.
Wes Streeting slams ‘wildly out of kilter’ union over online GP access
Health Secretary Wes Streeting slammed the British Medical Association (BMA) as “wildly out of kilter” with GPs over online GP access.
“Their position has been wildly out of kilter with their members in general practice,” he told Times Radio.
“We agreed with the BMA in the GP contract negotiations that we would require all GP practices in England to provide online access, online booking for appointments, bringing the NHS into the 21st century, to give patients more ease and convenience, choice and control.
“You would think that from the howls of outrage we’ve heard from the BMA in recent weeks and from their GP committee, you would think that GPs don’t want to do this, that this is really difficult, that it’s not happening.
“And yet, when this kicked in, we have seen the overwhelming majority, now 98.7 per cent of GP practices in England, able to provide online access.”
“This could have been an opportunity for real celebration and to say: ‘look at what GPs are doing, look at the modernisation, look at how they’re improving access for patients, look at the fact that patient satisfaction with GP access has increased from 60% when Labour came to office to 75 per cent today’.
“So, this could have been a really great opportunity for Government and BMA and the profession to speak with one voice, but instead what we’ve seen from the GP committee is reflective of where we’ve been with the BMA overall, which is a lot of noise, a lot of outrage, and not speaking for their members, let alone speaking for patients’ interests,” he told Times Radio.
