Tory shadow minister Danny Kruger defects to Reform

A Conservative MP and shadow minister has defected to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.

Danny Kruger is the first sitting Tory MP to defect.

Speaking during a Reform UK press conference in Mayfair on Monday, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said Kruger would head up Reform’s efforts to prepare for Government.

Kruger declared that the “Conservative Party is over”.

“The Conservative party is over, over as a national party,” he said.

“Over as the principal opposition to the left.”

He added: “The flame is passing from one torch to another.”

The MP for East Wiltshire was elected in 2019, and he was the shadow welfare minister for the Tory party.

Describing his move as “personally painful”, Kruger said: “[The Tory party] have had a year of stasis and drift and the sham unity that comes from not doing anything bold or difficult or controversial, and the result is in the polls.

“And those voters aren’t coming back, and every day, more and more people are joining them in deserting the party that has failed.”

Farage previously announced that his party would be setting up a department preparing itself for Government.

After defecting from the Tory party on Monday morning, Farage said Kruger will be heading up the new department.

Speaking about his new job, Kruger said: “Our mission is not just to overthrow the current system, it is to restore the system we need.”

More to follow.