The Conservative Party doesn’t need to unite with Reform, it needs to remember what it stands for, writes Aaron Newbury

In a political world where nuance gives way to performance, Robert Jenrick’s call to “unite the right” might animate concerned Tory councillors facing the polls next week. But let’s not kid ourselves.

Folding the Conservative Party into a nationalist-populist blob with Reform may go some way to mitigate electoral risks, but it risks something far greater: trading principles for votes, and killing off Britain’s free-market soul in the process.

The Conservatives once stood for something

There was a time (and I for one hope there still is) when the Conservative Party was the party of free enterprise, individual aspiration and entrepreneurship. It was a movement that believed the greatest minority was the individual, and that life was to be lived free.

But that movement has increasingly been at risk of becoming the home of pessimism, protectionism and paternalistic politics. Jenrick’s musings may be manna for Reform UK voters, turned off by the Conservatives’ less-than-inspirational post-Covid turmoil, but they should terrify anyone who believes in open markets, personal freedom and a dynamic, global, entrepreneurial Britain.

Reports abound this week that Robert Jenrick, leadership rival to Kemi Badenoch, suggested it was time for Conservatives and Reform voters to “

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