4 hours ago
3
Another senior Conservative has defected to Reform UK, with the former health minister Maria Caulfield saying she signed up to Nigel Farage’s party a month ago.
Although Caulfield is no longer an MP after losing her Lewes seat to the Liberal Democrats last year, it is another blow for the Tories, a day after Danny Kruger, a sitting Tory MP and shadow work and pensions minister, announced he had moved to Reform.
A series of senior Conservatives have shifted over in recent months, although Kruger is so far the only one still in parliament.
Caulfield, who was an MP for nine years and served as a junior health minister, as well as junior minister for women and a Tory party vice-chair, told GB News: “If you are Conservative right-minded, then the future is Reform. The country is going to change a lot.
“The same people who thought that Brexit would not happen think that Reform will not happen. They are in for a shock.”
She said: “I have joined. My husband joined a few months ago and I joined a month ago.
“I am sad for the Conservative party. I could see that I have not changed but the party has become less and less what I believe in. We let people down over what Brexit meant on laws, money and borders. We took back control but we did not do anything about it.
“Reform is about changing the system – they won’t change unless they do it differently.”
Caulfield said it was possible she could seek to return as an MP with Reform, adding: “I will see what happens.”
While Reform is wary of accepting too many former Conservatives, as it could be portrayed as a retirement home for ejected MPs, Farage’s party is aware it lacks any experience of government, and former ministers would provide this.
Kruger, whose defection was announced at a press conference on Monday, has been appointed Reform’s head of “preparing for government”.
The MP for East Wiltshire, who previously served as political secretary to Boris Johnson, said: “The Conservative party is over. Over as a national party, over as the principal opposition to the left.”
Speaking to GB News about his defection, Kruger was at pains not to criticise Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, saying she had “done an admirable job in very difficult circumstances”.
He said: “On a personal level, I think she’s shown real courage and resilience doing the hardest job in politics. So I’m not going to attack her personally. I think any leader of the opposition would have had a tough time over the last year, but I do disagree with the strategy.
“I think what she and we should have done is a much more bold assertion of Conservative principles and policies over the last year. But here we are. I’m not just rejecting the Conservatives, I’m actually enthusiastically backing Nigel Farage and the Reform party, who I think have shown over the last year, and I hope with my appointment, this is demonstrated too, they have become a real, serious party of opposition.”
