Kemi Badenoch has been slammed by a senior Tory after she appeared to give the green light for Conservative councillors to do coalition deals with Reform UK.

Andy Street said the Tories “should have nothing to do with” Nigel Farage’s party.

Badenoch raised eyebrows last week when she said she would not have a problem with Conservative and Reform councillors joining forces to run town halls after the local elections on May 1.

She said: “What I’m telling local leaders across the country [is] they have to do what is right for the people in their local area.”

But in a major humiliation for the Tory leader, her offer was quickly rejected by Farage himself.

On BBC1′s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg this morning, Street, the former mayor of the West Midlands, also dismissed Badenoch’s suggestion.

He said: “It’s not my decision in any way, but my feeling on it is that we should have nothing to do with alliances with them, just as Kemi has said about the national situation.

“We’ve got to put in front of voters the choice – a moderate, centre-right Conservative Party against a populist party that do not have a policy answer to any of the big questions.”

On the same programme, shadow business secretary Andrew Griffith backed his leader.

He said: “There’s always been, after elections, for local councillors themselves to decide how they run the local council. If that is needed, then historically people have done deals on a local level with all sorts of groups.

“I think the Lib Dems are quite extremist – whenever they get into power they want four-day weeks and veganism – but no one should take that off the table because those are decisions for local councillors.”

He added: “I think Kemi is reflecting the reality that we have local democracy and if people stand for local councils and they want to do the best for their communities, then they will have to, in light of how people have voted, work out what the right combination is.”