Badenoch ‘not worried’ donor announcing £1m for Reform could be first of many

Kemi Badenoch said she is not worried that one of the Conservative Party’s big donors, Bassim Haidar, who has announced he is giving £1 million to Reform, could be the first of many.

It has been reported that Mr Haidar donated £700,000 to the Conservative Party under Rishi Sunak, and has now announced he is giving £1m to Reform.

Asked on Sky News Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips if she is worried he will be the first of many, the Conservative leader said: “No, I’m not worried, we are raising money as well in the Conservative Party.

“The last release showed that we raised more than the Lib Dems, Reform, and Labour combined.

“So we’re doing fine on donations.

“Obviously we don’t want to lose our donors, but we need to make sure that what we are doing is about the public, it’s not just about winning elections.

“What are we winning for?

“What is the agenda?”

Mrs Badenoch also insisted she would not go into coalition with Nigel Farage or Reform at national level.

Asked if she will forbid councillors from going into a coalition with Reform in the coming local elections, she said: “I want to be extremely clear, because people have often been confused by this.

“I’m not going into any coalition whatsoever with Nigel Farage or Reform at national level.”

She added: “At local level, it’s different.

“In the national election, you can rerun the election, at local level you can’t.

“So there might be no overall control.

“And what I’ve said to our councillors, I trust these people, they’re very smart, they’ve been doing this for decades, is that you have to do what is right for your local area.

“At the moment, we are in coalition with Liberal Democrats, with Independents, we’ve been in coalition with Labour before at local government level.

“They have to look at who the people are that they’re going into coalition with and seeing how they can deliver for local people.

“What I don’t want to hear is talks of stitch ups or people planning things before the result is out.

“They have to do what’s right for their community.”

Voters in 23 local authorities across England will go to the polls on May 1 to choose their new councillors, with mayors also up for election across six regions.

It will be the first big electoral test for the parties since last summer’s general election, and more than half of the council seats up for grabs are currently held by the Conservatives.

Reform UK is standing more candidates next week than the Conservatives and Labour, and is contesting 99.4% of the available seats.

The party has consistently polled higher than the Tories in recent months.

Meanwhile, Labour has made some unpopular decisions in Government, a senior minister has acknowledged, but insisted the Government’s agenda was starting to bear fruit.

Pat McFadden, a senior Cabinet Office minister, was asked by Sky News’s Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips about Labour trailing behind Reform UK in opinion polls ahead of the coming local elections.

He told the programme: “Look, we had some tough stuff to sort out after the election last year and I accept that some of those decisions have not been the most popular, but we are starting to see things turn around now.”

Mr McFadden pointed to a fall in NHS waiting lists for “six months in a row”, adding: “So, we’re starting to turn things around, but it will take some time to feel the benefit of these things, and at year end we know we’ve got more to do, because people want to see delivery.

“They want to see a Labour Government turn around the NHS.”

In an attack on both the Tories and Reform, he added: “We will do that and it’s a big contrast to what we inherited with the NHS, or, indeed, another force on the right that doesn’t believe in the NHS at all.”