‘We don’t need it!' Robert Jenrick rules out Tory pact after Reform storms council contests

Robert Jenrick has declared Reform UK "doesn't need" to consider a pact or deal with the Conservatives after its success in local election contests across the country.

Speaking to GB News, the Newark MP hailed the results as a major "rejection of the two old parties".

“I don't believe there will be any pact or deal. I don't think we'll need that,” Mr Jenrick said.

“Look at the results you're seeing today.

“The Conservatives may have done slightly better than they did a few years ago in Westminster or Wandsworth, but these are tiny numbers of places... I could count these constituencies on one hand."

To that end, Reform UK's Treasury Spokesman declared: “This is a historic rejection of the two old parties that failed the country for too long in different ways.”

However, GB News Breakfast hosts Ellie Costello and Stephen Dixon were keen to point out Mr Jenrick had been a member of one of those “old parties” before he defected from the Tories to Reform UK in January.

Mr Jenrick responded: “I've heard for several months this argument that a small number of Conservatives choosing to leave their party to put party loyalty to one side and get behind Nigel and Reform would somehow damage reform.

“Look at the results. That argument has obviously been comprehensively debunked.

“People want change, and Reform is bringing together people from all different parties and, above all, people who haven't been involved in politics at all in recent years.

“That's what is different about this party."

Regarding his old party, Mr Jenrick repeated his verdict that the Tories were “dead”.

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“It is now just a regional party representing pockets of incredible affluence in places like Kensington and bits of Wandsworth.”

He added: “It's not the party of Newark, where I represent, or Wolverhampton, where I grew up.

“It is not a national party anymore."

“The Conservative Party promised that they were going to secure our borders and deliver a strong economy but ended up delivering open borders and economic stagnation for working people, the length and breadth of the country.”

Turning his attention to Labour, Mr Jenrick slammed: “They promised change, but they just delivered more of the same.”

“People have had enough. They can see the country in a mess.

“Neither of the two old parties was prepared to or had the backbone to actually deliver.”

Mr Jenrick also celebrated what he considered to be the “historic” nature of Reform UK's success, gaining hundreds of councillors nationwide.

“This day is without precedent," he commented.

“You're going to have to go back to the beginning of the 20th century and the end of the Liberal Party and the rise of the Labour Party to see something as dramatic as this.

“We have secured the heartlands of the Conservative Party, and the Labour Party collapsed and went to a party that didn't even exist just a few years ago."

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