FORMER Minister Dame Andrea Jenkyns has dismissed reports about senior Conservatives considering joining Reform UK to form a “mega-party” to defeat Labour.

She told the Camilla Tominey Show on GB News: “This is just fake news. I know Boris, I know Robert [Jenrick]. They’re both friends. I know Nigel, he’s a friend and this just has not happened…

“We don’t even know if Boris wants to come back on to the front line of politics. Nigel has already said we are pushing to form a majority government.

“What I actually think is this is Kemi’s team briefing the media to make out that, number one because they’re behind in the polls, so to make it out that Robert is trying to do a deal and that Nigel cannot get a government in his own right, and to try and just discredit Robert.

“I’ve just seen it myself. When I was in government, I remember, when I was a Conservative, I remember a story being briefed, and I asked Boris and Carrie about this, where it said that Rishi had come out and said that Boris he’d rang and spoke to Boris and he was going to help him campaign.

“No such phone call happened. We know that leaders of the opposition, governments, they do brief stuff like this, and I think it’s a deflection tactic and is, I’m afraid, fake news.”

She added: “I tried to do that before the general election…I tried to, I spoke with Rishi, I spoke with Reform, trying to bring both together but we were in a different place in the polls then.

“Look at where we are now as the Reform party. I mean, consistently, we’re beating Labour and Conservatives, and we’re four years away from an election, so I think anything’s possible.

“Yes, if the push comes to the shove, and we can’t form a majority, we might need to look at that. But we’re four years away.

“We’ve got four years to actually build on this massive momentum. We’ve got nearly 200,000 members already now, which is trouncing the Conservatives. So I think the only way is up actually.”