Four Tory candidates have signed up to the pledges of Laurence Fox’s right-wing Reclaim Party in exchange for campaign donations of £5,000 each.
The four Conservatives, Dame Andrea Jenkyns, Brendan Clarke-Smith, Karl McCartney and Marco Longhi, have promised to uphold Reclaim’s “four commitments to culture”.
The commitments are to seek to pull Britain out of the European Court of Human Rights, repeal the Human Rights Act, ban gender reassignment for children and to reform the Equality Act.
The four pledges are not Conservative Party policy, and having his own candidates sign up to a rival party’s platform is a blow to the PM’s authority. It will see Rishi Sunak come under further pressure from the right of the party if he remains Tory leader after the election.
Dame Andrea said that since she joined parliament in 2015 she had always supported campaigns “I truly believe in” including Brexit and defunding the BBC.
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“In this year’s general election I am supporting the four pledges of Reclaim,” she said.
She added: “I’ve already thought for some of these things. But while [Nigel Farage’s Reform UK] have a scorched earth policy and are trying to destroy true conservatism, Reclaim are taking a grown up approach.
“They realise it is important that as true common sense conservatives we unite and take the fight to the Labour Party and we try to stop the dangerous Starmer and Rayner government.”
Dame Andrea had previously called for Mr Sunak to be replaced as leader before the general election.
Reclaim’s founder and leader Mr Fox said: “We are delighted to support these four candidates who are prepared to make the necessary and urgent commitments to conserve our culture.”
It has donated £5,000 to each of the candidates’ general election campaigns.
Reclaim was founded in October 2020 by Mr Fox after an appearance on the BBC’s Question Time earlier that year, which he said resulted in him being “cancelled from a 21-year acting career”.
According to its website, the party exists to challenge “woke orthodoxy” and promote “freedom of speech”, which it views as being “under grave peril”.
Reclaim has been dubbed the “Ukip for culture” and is strongly associated with the so-called “culture wars”.
Mr Fox stood for the London mayoralty in 2021 under the Reclaim banner and got 1.9 per cent of the vote, coming sixth and losing his £10,000 deposit.
Mr Fox was recently ordered to pay a total of £180,000 in damages to two people he referred to as paedophiles on social media after losing a High Court libel battle.
He is currently being investigated by police for a social media post in which he shared an upskirt photograph of a female TV presenter.
Mr Clarke-Smith, Mr McCartney and Mr Longhi were contacted for comment.
