‘No pact’
Asked to elaborate, he said: “Nobody can really predict, and I’m not going to predict, what that relationship should look like — whether it’s even a coalition, whether Reform merge with the Conservative Party, whether it’s a … supply and confidence agreement or whatever it might be.
“But there’s going to have to be a very practical decision made. Because, again, in my view, because I’m a Conservative, I think the next few years are going to be terrible for the country. I think things are going to get a lot worse.
“And so again, if you want grown-up politicians on the center right to work together, and things don’t change, and it looks like the right is split right down the middle — that if it was unified it would deliver a significant majority in the U.K. parliament — then, you know, at that time, over the next couple of years, there are going to be decisions to be made.
“Again, what that looks like I don’t know. But I think a coming together in some form of Conservative and Reform is the best thing for the country.”
Houchen, who was granted a peerage by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson in 2023, stressed that he would remain a Conservative, unlike ex-colleagues — such as Greater Lincolnshire mayoral candidate Andrea Jenkyns — who have defected to Reform.
Reform is tipped to gain hundreds of council seats and a small number of elected mayors at local elections in England next week, while the Conservatives — fighting seats that were won on a high point during the Covid pandemic in 2021 — face hundreds of losses.
