Conservative MP Danny Kruger has become the latest Tory to defect to Reform UK.
The East Wiltshire MP has been made head of Reform’s new unit preparing the party for government, Nigel Farage announced on stage at a news conference.
Mr Kruger has been a Conservative MP since 2019 and has been on the Tory frontbench since then, lately as a shadow work and pensions minister under Kemi Badenoch’s leadership.
He is the first sitting Tory MP to defect to Reform.
Announcing his defection, Mr Kruger said: “The Conservative Party is over, over as a national party, over as the principal opposition to the Left.
“But I am not despondent because conservatism is not over. It’s never been needed more. And actually, it’s never been more vibrant.
“Because the failure of the Conservative Party has created space for an alternative. The flame is passing from one torch to another.”
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He said his defection is “very painful” but added: “I’m leaving because I think the party is over.”
The MP told Sky News political correspondent Liz Bates: “I don’t think the Conservative Party is dead. It’s just over as the official opposition.”
Mr Kruger, who is TV chef Dame Prue Leith’s son, said he has been a Conservative activist and MP for more than 20 years, but he does not believe the “divided, discredited Conservative Party” can unite to win power and “deliver the change that is needed”.
He said he respects Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch but does not think the party can win.
The MP revealed he started to think about defecting when Lee Anderson, a Tory MP who became an independent, moved to Reform in June 2024.
Mr Kruger said it was “fair enough” to be questioned about how he, as an Eton and Oxford graduate, can understand the British people, but pointed to the charity he founded working in prisons to stop re-offending and his work as a constituency MP since 2019.
Speaking moments after Mr Kruger announced his defection, Ms Badenoch said: “We are the only party of conservatives who are working on dealing with the government that we have now.
“We want them to live within our means. The economy is in freefall. They don’t know what to do.”
She said Sir Keir Starmer is “facing a political crisis” and are “the only people who are drawing attention to that”.
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