Simon Jupp, who is self-isolating from those living in the real world, won’t know which way to turn.

Tories could face a Canadian style wipe-out.  – Owl

Harry Yorke www.thetimes.co.uk 

The leader of Reform UK has privately given his senior team “cast-iron guarantees” that general election candidates will not be told to step aside for Tory opponents in a move that could split Rishi Sunak’s vote in key seats.

Richard Tice has offered written assurances to key party figures that they will fight the Conservatives right up to polling day.Reform has already selected candidates for 440 seats and intends to stand in all constituencies bar those in Northern Ireland.

It fought the 2019 general election as the Brexit Party, led by Nigel by Farage, changing its name afterwards

It posed a significant threat to Boris Johnson’s chances of winning a majority — until Farage decided to stand down 317 candidates to help ensure Jeremy Corbyn did not secure the keys to Downing Street. While Farage said he had put country before party, it caused significant anger among many Brexit Party candidates and supporters.

Tice, who took over as leader from Farage — currently Reform’s honorary president — has vowed not to repeat the move next year. He has given “concrete” assurances in writing to members of his top team and several parliamentary candidates who have been recently recruited. They include Ann Widdecombe, the former Conservative minister who is now Reform’s spokeswoman on immigration, and Ben Habib, its co-deputy leader.

The commitment was intended to convince many of the party’s high-profile figures that it is serious about fighting a major campaign at the next election. Several, including Habib and Widdecombe, are former Brexit Party MEPs who have rejoined in recent months after the promises were made.

Tice told The Sunday Times: “In the 2024 election year we will be ready whenever it comes, spring, summer or autumn. We will be standing in seats everywhere in England, Scotland and Wales. Many, including Tory MPs and commentators, still don’t believe us, but I have news for them: you are seriously underestimating our intent to have a massive impact in this coming election.”

The disclosure of Tice’s tactics poses another major headache for Sunak, whose party trails Labour by as much as 20 points in the polls and appears increasingly to be heading towards a landslide defeat.

Reform, meanwhile, is polling at around 9 per cent, with Conservative MPs concerned the rival party threatens to erode their vote share still further.

While Reform’s current polling numbers suggest it will not take seats directly from the Tories, it could steal enough Conservative votes to hand dozens of tight marginals to Labour. This has already been demonstrated in two recent by-elections in mid-Bedfordshire and Tamworth, where the number of votes cast for Reform was greater than the Labour majority.

A recent analysis by the pollster More in Common suggests support for Reform at the ballot box could cost the Tories 35 seats. These are likely to be pro-Brexit areas in the north and Midlands. Reform’s popularity is expected to grow in the new year, amid mounting speculation that Farage is preparing to return to frontline politics after his widely publicised stint on I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here!.

Farage and Tice have been speaking regularly since the former’s return from Australia and over Christmas are expected to discuss Farage’s “future role” in Reform. Tice is to hold a press conference on January 3, setting out Reform’s plans for the coming months, with Farage this weekend remaining tight-lipped about whether he will attend.

Tice is expected to use the event to ratchet up his attacks on the Conservatives while also seeking to appeal to pro-Brexit voters in “red wall” seats, who remain reluctant to return to Labour.

“Our view is that the toxic Tories are done and they are finished, and we will attack them mercilessly,” a senior Reform figure said. “But we are also now turning our guns onto Labour and the weaknesses of Keir Starmer. People will notice a significant stepping up and a shift in the way we attack the main two parties.”

Since taking over Reform, Tice has insisted publicly there will be no repeat of the concession made to the Conservatives in 2019. However, to convince former Brexit Party figures to rejoin, a senior source said he had made written commitments to each of them individually. This includes promising that all major decisions relating to the election campaign will be subject to consultation and not made unilaterally.

“[The decision to stand down candidates in 2019] has caused a great deal of hurt and upset among many of our Brexit Party people up and down the country,” they added. “You carry the scars with you, as the leadership team. Richard recognises how important that loyalty is and he isn’t doing that again. Keir Starmer is not Jeremy Corbyn, there is no threat of a Labour-SNP coalition, there is less chance of them overturning Brexit.”

Widdecombe added: “The situation is completely different now. In 2019 if we had not stood down Labour could have won and there was a real chance that Brexit could have been overturned. This time Brexit has been done — at least legally. Yes, Starmer will do some things that we don’t like, but the Conservatives are doing that anyway.”

Similar reassurances have been made to a number of parliamentary candidates and party staff. In several instances, these commitments were given after candidates said they had been contacted by Tory MPs they are due to stand against, who urged them to consider contesting another constituency instead.

Tice has made clear internally that no concessions will be granted and that the party will contest 630 seats across the UK, excluding Northern Ireland. He wrote in the Telegraph following the Mid Bedfordshire and Tamworth by-elections in October that he was “delighted to have made the difference by stopping the Tories from winning not one but both by-elections in their ‘safe’ seats”. Labour took both.

Reform has already recruited about 440 candidates, with 220 attending a training day in Wakefield in November. Reform intends to have confirmed the remaining 190 by the end of February.

The party is also stepping up its programme of events for the coming election year. Tice is due to host a Welsh conference in Port Talbot, home to one of the biggest steelworks in the world, on February 4, with Reform holding its national spring conference in Doncaster three weeks later.

Senior party figures believe that if Farage does return to the front line, the party’s popularity will continue to grow. This, one predicted, could lead to an electoral wipeout akin to that suffered by the Progressive Conservative Party in Canada, which, in 1993, after a decade in power, lost 167 seats and was left with just two MPs.

They insisted that, unlike in 2019, the government’s alleged failings on Brexit and failure to pursue “genuine” conservative policies mean that Reform was determined to remove the Tories from power.

“My gut feeling is if Farage was properly engaged, 8.5 per cent [in the polls] would become 13 per cent overnight,” they added. “You do that to the Tories and you are looking at a Canadian wipeout. That’s exactly what we want.”