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Nigel Farage has told donors he expects a deal or merger between his Reform UK party and the Conservatives ahead of the next general election, suggesting he does not believe he can sweep to power alone.

One donor said that Farage had told them he expected to do a deal with the Tories, whether it is a merger or an agreement on co-operation between the two parties, to ease Reform’s route to election victory.

The person added the Reform leader had said such a deal could only be done on his terms, in part because Farage felt betrayed after the pact he made with the Tories at the 2019 election.

Another associate who met with Farage in recent months said that the Reform leader described a pact or merger as inevitable but added it may take some time.

The person added that Farage had said that Reform held more power so any agreement would be made on his rightwing populist party’s terms.

The Tories are languishing at about 17 per cent in opinion polls — a similar level to both Labour and the Greens and their lowest level in decades — while Reform is leading on 29 per cent.

The discussions between Farage and donors point to the challenges he faces in turning Reform’s political momentum into real power, as a split vote on the right could allow liberal and left-leaning voters to unite to keep his party out of office.

But Farage dismissed the descriptions of the conversations, telling the Financial Times that “sometimes people hear what they want to”.

“After next May, the Conservatives will no longer be a national party,” Farage said, referring to the devolved elections in Scotland and Wales, and local polls in England.

“I would never do a deal with a party that I don’t trust. No deals, just a reverse takeover,” he added. “A deal with them as they are would cost us votes.”

The Conservatives have struggled to recover from a devastating defeat to Labour at last year’s election.

Reform has since eaten away at the Tories’ support with its hardline positions on migration and crime.

Farage has criticised the Conservatives for allowing record levels of migration to the UK after 2019, under policies that he claims were a betrayal of the election deal he did with the Tories.

His Brexit party, the precursor to Reform, agreed not to field parliamentary candidates in constituencies where the Tories under then leader Boris Johnson had a good chance of taking seats from Labour. It helped Johnson secure a big House of Commons majority in 2019.

Since last year, Farage has welcomed 20 former Conservative MPs to Reform, including ex-cabinet minister and Johnson ally Nadine Dorries.

Nigel Farage and Nadine Dorries at the Reform UK party conference in September © Leon Neal/Getty Images

Danny Kruger became the first sitting Tory to defect to Reform in September. The latest defections came on Monday, including former deputy Conservative chair Jonathan Gullis.

But Tory donors have mostly stuck with the Conservatives, the oldest and most successful party in the UK, with leader Kemi Badenoch seen as improving her performance in recent months.

The Tories secured £6.3mn in donations in the first half of the year, according to Electoral Commission data, three times the £2.1mn raised by Reform, which has been reliant on a handful of party insiders for funding.

Some Reform supporters believe the party will need to enter a pact with the Tories so that they are not fighting over the same seats at the next election and splitting their vote.

Under the UK’s first past the post system, the parliamentary candidate with the most votes wins the seat, even if they do not have a majority. The next election must take place by August 2029.

“They will have to come together,” one Reform donor said. “The Conservatives have been a successful political party forever because the left was always divided . . . If the right is divided, it can’t win.”

Badenoch has dismissed claims that the Tories could do a deal with Reform, saying earlier this year “I am the custodian of an institution that has existed for nigh on 200 years . . . I can’t just treat it like it’s a toy and have pacts and mergers.”

However, last week she did not rule out some form of power-sharing agreement in Wales after the devolved election.

Anthony Wells, head of politics and elections at pollster YouGov, said that while Reform are “miles ahead in the polls”, tactical voting among more liberal and left-leaning voters could keep Farage out of power.

At the same time, significant numbers of Tory voters were not inclined to back Farage even if the choice was Reform or Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour, YouGov polling has found.

“There are some Tories that really don’t like Reform so there will be some leakage from right to left,” Wells said.