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Nearly half of Conservative Party members support a merger with Reform UK, according to a new poll.
The YouGov survey also found that Kemi Badenoch is the clear favourite to succeed Rishi Sunak as Tory leader.
The findings were released less than a week after the Conservatives lost nearly 250 MPs as Labour won a historic landslide.
Reform UK, meanwhile, had five MPs elected, including party leader Nigel Farage.
The poll of 725 Tory members found that 47% of them would back a merger with Reform UK, with 48% opposed.
Speaking during the election campaign, Farage spoke of his ambition to “take over” the Conservative Party.
He told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: “You can speculate as to what’ll happen in three or four years’ time, all I will tell you is if Reform succeed in the way that I think they can, then a chunk of the Conservative Party will join us – it’s the other way around.”
A Reform UK spokesman said: “With the Conservatives over the next year or so looking more like the staging for a Jacobean revenger’s tragedy than a functional 21st century political party, we should not intrude on their internal drama.
“That being said, when did their parliamentary cast list ever give a hoot about what the membership wants?”
The poll, for the Party Members Project run out of Queen Mary University of London and Sussex University, also found that 25% back Badenoch to be the next leader.
That is nearly twice the number who back Suella Braverman, who received the support of 13% of members. Tom Tugendhat came third on 12%.
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