Conservative Party MP joins Nigel Farage’s anti-immigration Reform UK

The Nigel Farage-led Reform UK on Monday got a boost to his leadership ambitions after a prominent Conservative Party MP defected to the anti-immigration party, declaring that the Tories were "over" as Britain's main Opposition party.

Danny Kruger, member of Parliament for East Wiltshire and former political secretary to Boris Johnson when he was prime minister, said the Conservatives had become a "toxic brand" and he was throwing his weight behind Farage. Conservative Party chief Kemi Badenoch reacted to say that she will not be "blown off course" as Opposition Leader by the defection.

"There have been moments when I have been very proud to belong to the Tory party," said Kruger, who served in Badenoch's shadow cabinet on the work and pensions brief.

"The rule of our time in office was failure. Bigger government, social decline, lower wages, higher taxes and less of what ordinary people actually wanted. This is my tragic conclusion, the Conservative Party is over, over as a national party, over as the principal opposition to the left,'' he said.

Kruger is the second sitting MP to join Reform UK after Lee Anderson, who was previously a Tory politician and then an Independent MP before joining Reform UK in 2024.

"He'll vote the same way. He'll think the same way. He just happens to see that we are the vehicle through which he can achieve the things that he wants to see for the country, not the current failing Conservative Party," said Farage, on acquiring Kruger as an additional MP in his ranks.

The Labour Party government linked the defection to the previous Conservative government, which would dissuade voters from supporting the party. "Every Conservative who defects to Reform ties Nigel Farage more closely to their record of failure. Nigel Farage can recruit as many failed Tories as he likes – it won't change the fact that he has no plan for Britain," a Labour spokesperson said.

The move piles pressure on Badenoch as the leader of the Conservative Party, which has been trailing in the opinion polls amid growing public discontent over soaring illegal migration figures.

The deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats, Daisy Cooper, labelled the Tories ''a shell of its former self'' with lifelong Tories being turned off by Badenoch's leadership since the party's general election defeat in July 2024.

"Badenoch's chasing of Reform's tail has only pushed her own MPs into their camp. The Conservative Party is a shell of its former self. It is no wonder that lifelong Conservative voters who feel abandoned by Badenoch and appalled by Farage have turned to the Liberal Democrats in their droves," said Cooper.

"Nigel Farage's party is shapeshifting into the Conservatives in front of our very eyes. It is getting to the point where the only difference between them is just a slightly lighter shade of blue," she said.

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