The Conservative Party will “face consequences” if it fails to take Reform UK seriously, according to the Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.
During an in-depth interview with Gloria De Piero on GB News, Alex Burghart was asked if he spent much time thinking about Reform UK to which he said: “Yeah, I do, absolutely.
“Reform came second in my seat in Brentwood and Ongar in Essex and they got about 11,000 votes.
“It’s a big achievement. If we don’t take them seriously then there will be consequences.
Alex Burghart warns ‘there will be consequences if we don’t take Reform seriously’
GB News
“Look, the Conservative Party has to get back the people who voted for us in 2019 but then stayed at home.
“A lot of people around the country who didn’t want to vote for Reform, they didn’t want to vote for Labour, they wanted to vote for us, but they couldn’t when it came to it because they were annoyed with us.
“We’ve got to get those people back. And we also have people who went to Reform because they wanted something slightly different.
“We’ve got to show them that we’re the party with ideas, with a plan for Government who can actually get things done, not just a campaigning outfit, we’re a party of Government and we’re the party that is going to clean up Labour’s mess.
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Alex Burghart grilled by Gloria De Piero
GB News
“So you have to take Reform seriously. You got to take Labour seriously. You’ve got to take abstention seriously.
“And we in the Conservative Party, we’re going to need a message for young people. You’re going to need it when you need the next generation of voters to come to us.”
The Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster also spoke about standing in for party leader Kemi Badenoch at Prime Minister’s Questions recently.
Gloria De Piero also asked Burghart about his recent filling in for Kemi Badenoch at the despatch box
GB News
He told De Piero he enjoyed the challenge and revealed details of what Badenoch had said to him about it.
“She said before it was made public that I was doing it,” he told GB News.
“She said, ‘we’ve got a lot of talent in the Shadow Cabinet. Not everybody in the Shadow Cabinet is well known. I want other people to have a go, so just because I’m asking you now, it doesn’t mean you’ll do it next time, [there are] a lot of good people in the Shadow Cabinet who I think will do really well at it.’
“So, I don’t know, maybe she wanted to give me a challenge!”
