Farage says deal with Tories ‘as they are’ would cost Reform UK votes, as he dismisses claim he’s contemplating electoral pact
Good morning. The Financial Times today has a good story that will renew speculation about the prospect of Reform UK and the Conservative party doing some sort of deal before the next general election. Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, has said the story is “false”. But a close reading of his “denial” suggests that his thinking on this topic is rather more nuanced than that word implies.
In their story, Anna Gross and Julie Steinberg say that Farage has told donors that he expects some sort of pact between the two main rightwing parties before the election. They say:
One donor said Farage told them he expected to do a deal with the Tories, whether it be a merger or an agreement on co-operation between the two parties, to ease Reform’s route to election victory.
The person added that the Reform leader said such a deal could only be done on his terms, in part because Farage felt betrayed after the pact he made with the Tories at the 2019 election.
Another associate who met with Farage in recent months said the Reform leader described a pact or merger as inevitable but added it might take some time.
The person added that Farage said Reform held more power so any agreement would be made on his rightwing populist party’s terms.
Responding to the story in a post on X, Farage said:
A false story in the FT tonight claims Reform would do a deal with the Tories.
After 14 years of dishonesty & lies they should never be forgiven. The idea I’d work with them is ludicrous.
They betrayed my trust in 2019 & we will ensure they cease to be a national party in May.
The reference to May is important. Farage is referring to the Scottish parliament and Senedd elections. In Wales the polls suggest that Reform UK is on course to be the biggest party, and the Tories are polling at a level where they may struggle to win more than a handful for seats. In Scotland the SNP is comfortably in the lead, but here too Reform UK seems on course to easily outperform Kemi Badenoch’s party.
Farage also gave a quote to the FT before it ran its story and, although it largely echoed its tweet, it included an important qualifier (highlighted in bold). He told the paper:
After next May, the Conservatives will no longer be a national party.
I would never do a deal with a party that I don’t trust. No deals, just a reverse takeover. A deal with them as they are would cost us votes.
So it may be true that Farage has no intention of doing any sort of deal with Badenoch’s Conservative party. But it also seems to be the case that Farage does not think that sort of party survive until 2029, and that he is contemplating how he cooperates with some Tory rump faction under a different leadership. Many commentators think, if that is the situation, there will be some sort of electoral deal.
Keir Starmer may choose to bring this up at PMQs. Here is the agenda for the day.
Noon: Keir Starmer faces Kemi Badenoch at PMQs.
2.15pm: Helen Miller, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, and Ruth Curtice, chief executive of the Resolution Foundation, give evidence to the Commons Treasury committee about the budget.
If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line when comments are open (normally between 10am and 3pm at the moment), or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.
If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X, but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.
I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.
Key events
Starmer faces Badenoch at PMQs
PMQs is starting soon.
Here is the list of MPs down to ask a question.
Streeting defends puberty blockers trial after Badenoch breaks with Cass report and condemns it
Wes Streeting has also defended his decision to allow a trial of puberty blockers to go ahead for young people with gender incongruence – despite Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, denouncing the plan.
In his interview on the Today programme, Streeting said that the trial was going ahead in line with a recommendation in the report by Hilary Cass, a leading paediatrician, that urged a rethink on the provision of medical interventions for trans children.
The Cass report was welcomed by all the main parties when it was published last year, especially by MPs alarmed at the extent to which puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones were available to trans children. But last week Badenoch, who had in the past praised Cass, effectively turned her back on some of the Cass conclusions when she wrote an open letter to Streeting urging him to halt the puberty blockers trial.
The letter, which is similar to one written earlier by the hard-right independent MP Rupert Lowe, has now been signed by dozens of Tory MPs and peers. In a messsage about it yesterday on social media, Badenoch said;
More colleagues have joined me and @stuartandrew in opposing an NHS puberty-blocker trial on vulnerable children. Medicine should protect, not experiment to satisfy activist dogma. We will not stand for it.
@wesstreeting must put a stop to this dangerous trial immediately.
Asked about this on the Today programme, Streeting said he wanted cross-party support for the Cass recommendations to continue and that the trial was subject to “rigorous” ethical and safety checks. He said:
We are following the Cass review, commissioned by the previous Conservative government. In opposition we accepted all of the recommendations, and we wan it to work in a bipartisan way. That is the approach we are now taking in government.
It was Hilary Cass and who, sounded the alarm about the prescription of puberty blockers for this purpose, for this patient group without adequate evidence. She also recommended this trial.
And just to reassure people, the process of setting up this trial has gone through some of the most rigorous checks in terms of ethics, safety and clinical oversight.
It it will not be the case that a child, young person, can say, I want to be on this trial and then they’re on it. They have to go through rigorous, assessment in terms of their physical health and their mental health that parents will need to be involved and consenting.
We will need to be sure that parents are not having undue or improper influence over their children in terms of this, in terms of their own ideological viewpoints or standpoints …
So I am satisfied that this trial has been built, with ethics and safety at the heart of it.
Streeting says no NHS services will be cut to fund cost of UK-US pharmaceuticals deal
Wes Streeting, the health secretary, has said that no NHS services will be cut to fund a zero-tariff medical drugs deal with the US.
He has also dismissed claims that the agreement will cost the UK £3bn, saying that he regards £1bn as a more realistic figure.
On Monday a landmark deal with the US was announced, affecting tariffs and what the NHS pays for American pharamceutical products. The negotiation was launched in response to US complaints that the current pricing mechanism doesn’t properly compensate firms for the cost of research.
Asked about a claim the deal will cost the NHS £3bn a year, Streeting told the Today programme:
I don’t recognize the £3bn figure. So I’m going have to pour over how honest the King’s Fund have reached that … I think we’re looking more like the order of magnitude of around £1bn.
Asked if the money for this would have to come from the NHS budget, Streeting said: “We are not going to cut NHS services to fund it.”
He also insisted that the deal was good for the UK.
What our negotiators have achieved is remarkable. They’ve achieved 0% tariffs.
We’ve dealt with a complicated negotiating environment where we’ve had a domestic negotiation with life sciences here in the UK at the same time as our life sciences sector and life sciences more broadly have been negotiating with the Trump administration. And we have too. So it’s been very complicated. We’ve all been spining lots of plates. But we’ve got to a position which is good for growth and good for patients.
My principal position is I want to make sure that people in this country have access to the latest medicines, I want as much discovery to take place in the UK.
Streeting says he was ‘surprised' by experts' prostrate cancer screening recommendation, hinting rethink possible
On Friday last week the UK National Screening Committee (UKNSC) released advice saying it did not think prostate cancer screening should not be made available to the vast majority of men across the UK.
In an interview on BBC Breakfast this morning, Wes Streeting, the health secretary, said that he was “surprised” by the decision. He also hinted that the recommendation might be ignored.
He explained:
I’m looking very carefully at why the national screening committee reached that decision.
I’ve always said these things have got to be based on science and evidence, not on politics.
But the recommendation did surprise me.
This is contested. I’ve got people in the prostate cancer community and not just really prominent patients and celebrities and politicians who’ve used their experience and their voice in this debate, but among scientists and researchers.
This is a draft recommendation. They consult on this for three months, and then we have to make a final decision.
What I’m going to do is get some of those leading, best scientific voices and competing opinions around the table to thrash this out, to really interrogate the data and make sure that when I come on your programme having made a decision, it’s the right decision for the right reasons, the best evidence and the public can then understand why we’ve made the decision and the scientific community can understand why we’ve made the decision.
But I am interrogating this data and recommendation because it did surprise me.
A consultation has been launched on the UKNSC recommendation, and a final decision will be made in March.
Preparing evidence for Covid inquiry has cost government £100m in staff and legal costs, figures show
The public inquiry into the Covid pandemic has cost the government more than £100m to respond to so far, PA Media reports. PA says:
Transparency data from the Cabinet Office shows the overall cost for responding to the UK Covid-19 Inquiry, including for legal advice and dedicated staff working on preparing evidence.
The cost is on top of the £192m cost of the inquiry itself so far. The inquiry is expected to become the most expensive in British history.
The documents, analysed by the BBC and seen by the Press Association, reveal 248 full-time equivalent staff were working on the government response to the Covid inquiry at the last count.
The figures show:
– £56.4m was spent by the government on legal costs from April 2023 to June 2025 inclusive, with £26.2m in the 12 months to March 2024, £25m in the 12 months to March 2025, plus £5.2m in the three months from April to June 2025.
– £44.6m was spent on staff costs across this period, made up of £18m in the year to March 2024, £21.6m in the year to March 2025, and £5m in the three months April-June 2025.
– The combined total for legal and staff costs for the period April 2023 to June 2025 is £100.9m, though the true amount could be higher as the costs are “not based on a complete set of departmental figures and are not precise for accounting purposes”, according to the Cabinet Office documents.
– The number of full-time equivalent staff working on the overnment’s response to the inquiry stood at 265 at the end of the 2023/24 financial year, had risen to 286 by the end of 2024/25, and then fell to 248 across April-June 2025.
Wes Streeting accuses BMA of ‘juvenile delinquency' over plan for fresh strike by resident doctors before Christmas
Wes Streeting, the health secretary, has accused the BMA of “juvenile delinquency” after it announced plans for another resident doctors strike in England before Christmas.
As PA Media reports, resident doctors will strike for five days from 7am on 17 December until 7am on 22 December as they continue their fight with the government over training and pay. It follows similar strike action by resident doctors, formerly called junior doctors, between November 14 and November 19, and other previous strikes.
On Sky News this morning, asked if he had “had it” with doctors’ unions, Streeting replied:
With the BMA, certainly.
I mean, whether it’s the rhetoric and the behaviour of the BMA around general practice, whether it is yet another round of unnecessary strike action being proposed by resident doctors who’ve had a 28.9% pay rise, we’ve seen an outbreak in the British Medical Association of juvenile delinquency, and it is irresponsible, because we know that the NHS is under real pressure …
Since we came to office, there are real signs of green shoots of recovery, whether that’s on the waiting list, whether that’s on patient satisfaction with general practice, whether that’s the investment we’re putting into urgent emergency care – we could be leaning into this together.
Instead, the BMA is not only holding back the NHS’s recovery and inflicting damage on patients, it’s also self-defeating for their members who are having to work in these conditions.
Jenrick says Tories and Reform UK won't do deal because both party leaders are opposed
Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, has been giving interviews for the Conservative party this morning. He has also dismissed the report about a possible election deal of sorts between his party and Reform UK. But, as with Nigel Farage (see 9.33am), he seems to have chosen his words carefully.
Asked about the story on Times Radio, Jenrick said:
I can’t speculate on what Nigel might have said at a boozy lunch in the City to his mates. All I can say is that my leader Kemi Badenoch said there won’t be a deal. Nigel Farage has said there won’t be a deal so there won’t be a deal.
Asked how he felt personally about the prospect of a deal, Jenrick replied:
There won’t be a deal. These are two distinct political parties and their respective leaders have said no deal. So it’s as simple as that.
That was his second reference to Kemi Badenoch being opposed to a deal. There are some people in the Conservative party who believe that, by the time of the next election, a different leader will be making the decision – although since party conference, where Badenoch’s keynote speech was widely praised, and in the light of her much-improved PMQs performance, there is a lot less talk about that then there was in the summer.
Earlier this year Sky News revealed that Jenrick told a Tory dinner in private that, while he would like Reform UK support to collapse, if they were still doing well at the time of the next election “one way or another” the Tories would have to unite with them to defeat Labour.
Farage has also said similar things in the past. Last year he told Nick Robinson’s Political Thinking podcast:
I just don’t see long term how people like myself and Richard Tice don’t finish up at the same political party as a Jacob Rees-Mogg or a Suella Braverman … There is going to be – this has been talked about, by the way for decades – but there is going to be a realignment of the centre right of British politics.
Labour accuses Farage of ‘shady backroom plot' with Tories
Labour says the Financial Times story (see 9.33am) shows that Nigel Farage is willing to be propped up by the Conservative party. A Labour spokesperson said:
Nigel Farage isn’t even hiding it anymore – he’s happy for failed Tories to prop up his party, whether they choose to join Reform or not.
The Conservatives broke public services and hammered family finances. They and Reform would inflict Tory austerity on Britain all over again, meaning savage cuts to local schools and hospitals.
This shady backroom plot will send a shiver down the spine of people up and down the country, and shows you simply can’t trust Nigel Farage.
Farage says deal with Tories ‘as they are’ would cost Reform UK votes, as he dismisses claim he’s contemplating electoral pact
Good morning. The Financial Times today has a good story that will renew speculation about the prospect of Reform UK and the Conservative party doing some sort of deal before the next general election. Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, has said the story is “false”. But a close reading of his “denial” suggests that his thinking on this topic is rather more nuanced than that word implies.
In their story, Anna Gross and Julie Steinberg say that Farage has told donors that he expects some sort of pact between the two main rightwing parties before the election. They say:
One donor said Farage told them he expected to do a deal with the Tories, whether it be a merger or an agreement on co-operation between the two parties, to ease Reform’s route to election victory.
The person added that the Reform leader said such a deal could only be done on his terms, in part because Farage felt betrayed after the pact he made with the Tories at the 2019 election.
Another associate who met with Farage in recent months said the Reform leader described a pact or merger as inevitable but added it might take some time.
The person added that Farage said Reform held more power so any agreement would be made on his rightwing populist party’s terms.
Responding to the story in a post on X, Farage said:
A false story in the FT tonight claims Reform would do a deal with the Tories.
After 14 years of dishonesty & lies they should never be forgiven. The idea I’d work with them is ludicrous.
They betrayed my trust in 2019 & we will ensure they cease to be a national party in May.
The reference to May is important. Farage is referring to the Scottish parliament and Senedd elections. In Wales the polls suggest that Reform UK is on course to be the biggest party, and the Tories are polling at a level where they may struggle to win more than a handful for seats. In Scotland the SNP is comfortably in the lead, but here too Reform UK seems on course to easily outperform Kemi Badenoch’s party.
Farage also gave a quote to the FT before it ran its story and, although it largely echoed its tweet, it included an important qualifier (highlighted in bold). He told the paper:
After next May, the Conservatives will no longer be a national party.
I would never do a deal with a party that I don’t trust. No deals, just a reverse takeover. A deal with them as they are would cost us votes.
So it may be true that Farage has no intention of doing any sort of deal with Badenoch’s Conservative party. But it also seems to be the case that Farage does not think that sort of party survive until 2029, and that he is contemplating how he cooperates with some Tory rump faction under a different leadership. Many commentators think, if that is the situation, there will be some sort of electoral deal.
Keir Starmer may choose to bring this up at PMQs. Here is the agenda for the day.
Noon: Keir Starmer faces Kemi Badenoch at PMQs.
2.15pm: Helen Miller, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, and Ruth Curtice, chief executive of the Resolution Foundation, give evidence to the Commons Treasury committee about the budget.
If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line when comments are open (normally between 10am and 3pm at the moment), or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.
If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X, but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.
I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.
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