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Nigel Farage has sought to persuade Lord Ben Houchen, the Conservative Tees Valley mayor, to defect to Reform UK in recent weeks but his advances have so far been unsuccessful.
Houchen was approached by the rightwing populist party late last year and had a meeting with its leader Farage and a staff member in mid-December, according to people briefed on the discussions.
The staff member approached Houchen again on Thursday, the same day Tory shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick defected to Farage’s party, saying the Reform leader wanted to have lunch with him.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch — who sacked Jenrick for “plotting” hours before he joined Reform — was made aware of the approach to Houchen and the meeting ahead of time, the people said.
Contacted for comment, Houchen told the Financial Times that he had no plans to defect to Reform, which is leading national opinion polls. “I’ve always been a Conservative. Loyalty is important to me,” the mayor for Tees Valley Combined Authority said.
Reform’s attempt to recruit Houchen, who has championed the Teesworks regeneration scheme, signals the efforts Farage and his team are making to replace the Tories as the main party on the rightwing of British politics.
Farage has warned that potential defectors will not be accepted after May 7, when local elections in England are due.
But Houchen’s stance points to a resistance among some prominent Conservatives, who believe their near 200-year-old party will make a comeback from its devastating loss in the 2024 general election.
“Fundamentally, for me it’s economic competence, the way the country’s going, people are going to start looking at their own pockets . . . Once you get to that level of economic scrutiny, Reform doesn’t stack up,” Houchen said. “There’s a big opportunity for the Tories to regain some trust by just focusing on the economy.”
Houchen also said he was not convinced that Reform would replace the Tories, as Farage claims. “It may take five, 10 or 15 years but I believe that the Tories and Reform will come together,” he said.
Farage said “we certainly have not reached out [to Houchen]”, but made no further comment.
Reform has enjoyed strong momentum in recent months and commands about 28 per cent of public support according to opinion polls, 10 percentage points higher than both Labour and the Tories.
On Tuesday, the Welsh Conservatives confirmed that they had removed Senedd member James Evans from the party for telling the leader that he was considering defecting to Reform.
On Sunday Evans gave an interview in which he criticised Badenoch and declined to say whether he had been speaking to Farage’s party, which is hoping to beat Labour in Senedd elections, also on May 7.
At the meeting with Houchen in December, Farage made the case that the Tories were dead and would cease to exist as a national party after May’s elections, according to people briefed on the discussions.
He also conceded that one area where Reform needed to develop was its reputation for economic credibility.
Farage also said he could have retired from politics for good and continued earning much more money in the private sector, but he believed he was the only person who could turn the country around, the people added.
Alongside his position as MP for Clacton, Farage is a paid presenter on TV channel GB News.
Jenrick’s defection came days after former Tory chancellor Nadhim Zahawi joined Reform. He was followed on Monday by Andrew Rosindell, former shadow minister for foreign affairs.