Conservative Party leaders have not ruled out doing deals with Reform UK or Plaid Cymru following next year’s Senedd elections in Wales.
Kemi Badenoch, the Tory leader, and Darren Millar, her Welsh counterpart, have kept the option of working with other parties to form the next Welsh government on the table.
The Conservatives are preparing for the Senedd election in May next year, which will be the first held under a new proportional voting system.
While Ms Badenoch previously ruled out working with Reform at a UK level, she has not objected to local coalitions.
Speaking to the PA news agency at the Welsh Conservative Conference in Llangollen on Friday, the party leader declined to rule out working with Plaid or Reform in Wales.
She said: “I keep getting asked about coalitions and deals, and I don’t answer that question, because I think once you start talking about coalitions and deals, what the public hears is a ‘stitch-up’.
“I need to say what the Conservative way is, what our offer is, let’s wait until the election before we start talking about coalitions and deals.
“We’re not stitching anything up. What we’re doing is working as hard as we can for the people of this country.”
Mr Millar, in a separate interview, added: “I’ve made it clear that I will work with anybody in the national interest to get rid of this clapped out Labour government, that is what I am prepared to do, because it’s in the national interest to see the back of them.
“I am determined to get the Conservatives into government in Wales. That is my mission.”
The comments come as the party faces a difficult race in Wales, with a recent YouGov poll putting the Welsh Tories in fourth place on 13% at the next election, behind Plaid Cymru, Reform UK and Labour.
Mr Millar said the polling had motivated him to “work my socks off” to win back voters.
He said: “I think that if we can enthuse people, put some hope in their hearts, demonstrate what we would do as a credible alternative government, and if they consider the options available to them.
“There’s no point in voting Plaid, there’s no point in voting for the Liberal Democrats, because all they’ve done it prop the Labour Party up and who on earth would take a risk with Reform, it’s a limited company, not a political party, without any credible, realistic policies.”
He added: “I’m determined to get as many seats in that next Senedd as possible, and it is perfectly possible for us to be the largest party in that Senedd, I believe, under the new voting system.
“And that’s what I’m determined to do.”
Last week, Plaid Cymru’s leader Rhun ap Iorwerth, ruled out working with Reform to form the next Welsh government and said he could not see a “formal relationship with the Conservatives”.
