Both parties have been urged to 'unite the right' - but both leaders have shot down the bid
Kemi Badenoch has vowed to never join forces with Nigel Farage's "woke" Reform UK despite the Tories' sinking polling.
The Conservative leader said the populist party was "all about grievance" and insisted on "demonising" large portions of society.
"A lot of people don’t understand, you know, the word ‘woke’ is used to mean many things," the Conservative leader said, when asked what the distinguishing factor was between her party and Reform.
She explained: "When I talk about woke, I talk about people who [think] it’s all grievance. It’s victim narratives. People are doing this to us."
The North West Essex MP further declared the Tories are refusing to strike a deal with the party of her defected colleagues, Robert Jenrick and Suella Braverman.
Both joined Reform UK with Mr Jenrick signing up in January after Mrs Badenoch fired the former Shadow Justice Secretary over a "secret" plot to defect.
She insisted Mr Farage was doing her "spring cleaning", as the Newark MP latched onto Mr Farage's party just hours after being booted from the Tories.
Now, the Tory leader ruled out both pre-election and post-election agreements, insisting either deal would result in a "stitch-up".
"So I just say no to everything, and the reason why is because people who talk about deals are usually not thinking about the public.
"They’re just thinking about how they can get jobs themselves," she said, speaking to Ed Balls on the Political Currency podcast.
YouGov polling shows the Conservatives dropped two points in the past week, finding themselves three points behind Labour and four behind Mr Farage.
None of the parties are believed to wield a sufficiently strong hold over the electorate to manage to form a majority government at the next election.
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In the past, Mr Farage has equally sought to debunk theories of a Tory-Reform coalition in a bid to beat the left wing parties.
But, earlier this week, the Reform UK chief admitted he was "open" to the idea of a deal with one of his former MPs, Rupert Lowe.
Mr Farage declared he would be willing to "negotiate" with the leader of Restore Britain as long as he "genuinely wants to have talks".
Over the weekend, the Great Yarmouth MP set out a series of conditional demands, insisting that Reform UK must agree to five policies, including:
Speaking during press conference, he said: "If it was the offer of a deal, it came in a very unusual way.
"I have responded to it, potentially, with an open mind, as I would, but I’m certainly not going to be ditching people who I view as allies and a great asset.
“We will find out whether he genuinely wants to have talks. If he does, then we’ll start to negotiate."
He added: "If anything like this were to happen, it would not happen overnight. It would go through a whole series of stages. Whatever’s been said in the past, I’m prepared to put that in the past and have a conversation.
"But I’m not going to commit myself to anything like that right now, and he seems to have given us a shopping list, some of which I have no desire to meet."
