Former Conservative minister Andrea Jenkyns uses Nigel Farage picture on leaflet

A Conservative former minister has defended her decision to use a picture of her alongside Reform UK leader Nigel Farage on her election campaign leaflet.

Dame Andrea Jenkyns, who is campaigning to be the Conservative MP for Leeds South West and Morley, has a leaflet which includes an image of her and Mr Farage at his 60th birthday party earlier this year.

There is no mention of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. Dame Andrea, a staunch Brexiteer and ally of Boris Johnson, has been a vocal critic of Mr Sunak, who she blamed for plotting against Mr Johnson to become Tory leader.

Mr Farage’s party is directly competing with the Tories for votes across the country – including in the Clacton constituency where he is standing.

But Dame Andrea defended her choice, as she acknowledged there had been “lots of excitement” about it in a post on social media site X.

“All conservatives must be prepared to come together to prevent a socialist supermajority and the end of Britain as we know it,” she said.

Reform's deputy leader Richard Tice responded to Dame Andrea's leaflet on X, suggesting she was "embarrassed to be a Tory".

He wrote: "Leaflet by Andrea Jenkyns has not a single mention that she is Conservative candidate. Like many other Tories."

The other candidates standing in Leeds South West and Morley:

• Chris Bell, the Green Party

• Howard Graham Dews, the Yorkshire Party

• Michael Fox, Liberal Democrats

• James Kendall, Reform UK

• Nigel Perry, Social Democratic Party

• Mark Sewards, Labour Party

Mr Farage has recently branded Reform as the “challenger for Labour” and suggested he wants the party to become the “real opposition”, before launching a bid to take power in the next decade.

Conservative former home secretary Suella Braverman has suggested Reform and the Tories have similar political positions, and that Mr Farage could join her party.

But he has rejected this invitation because of the Conservatives’ record on net migration.

Former education minister Dame Andrea attended Mr Farage’s birthday celebration at a restaurant in Canary Wharf in April, alongside Conservative former prime minister Liz Truss and ex-Tory Lee Anderson, who defected to Reform while he was MP for Ashfield.

Dame Andrea’s election leaflet features the strapline “people before politics”, and claims she will be “your outspoken Yorkshire voice with a proven track record”, all against a Conservative blue background.

Alongside her photograph with Mr Farage, there are other photos of the former MP carrying out constituency work, including meeting with what appears to be a Second World War era re-enactor.

It also boasts of £24.5 million investment into Morley, a town which she represented in the last parliament as Conservative MP for Morley and Outwood – a constituency which is being replaced due to boundary changes.

A spokesperson for the Electoral Commission said: “There are restrictions on joint campaigning for or against parties or categories of candidate, but the law on campaigning for a candidate is different.

“Anyone (including another candidate) can spend up to £700 on local campaigning for a candidate. If candidates were working together on spending to promote both their candidacies, they would need to split the spending so that it was reflected in both of their spending returns."

She had a majority of 11,267 over her Labour opponent at the 2019 election, having first won the seat in 2015 from Labour former minister Ed Balls.

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