Tory MP and shadow minister Danny Kruger defects to Reform

Danny Kruger, a Conservative MP, has become the first sitting Tory MP to defect to Reform UK, citing his desire to participate in reforming the UK’s political system. Kruger, who has represented East Wiltshire since 2019, previously served on Tory leader Kemi Badenoch’s staff as a shadow jobs and pensions minister.

At a press conference alongside Reform Party leader Nigel Farage, Kruger said:

“The Conservatives are finished. I am honoured to be asked to help with government reform, and I hope Nigel Farage will be the next prime minister.”

Kruger confirmed he would not trigger a by-election, explaining that the Conservative Party was no longer the main opposition in East Wiltshire.

“There have been times when I was proud to serve the Tory party,” he said. “But the reality of our time in office has been mistrust, bigger government, social decline, lower wages, higher taxes, and less of what ordinary people want. My sad conclusion is that the Conservative Party is over — not just as a national party, but as the main opposition to the left.”

While he expressed high regard for Badenoch personally, he criticised the party’s “toxic brand” and said failing to take bold, difficult, or controversial decisions was equivalent to doing nothing.

Describing his departure from a party he had belonged to for 20 years as personally painful, Kruger said Reform UK’s mission would be not only to challenge the current government but to restore effective governance.

Badenoch responded to Kruger’s defection by emphasising that it was not about her personally. She said she would not be distracted by the events and remained focused on Conservative values and reform.

Kruger told the BBC that the Conservative Party, in his view, had become a faction that lacked the ability to win future elections. He noted that while he agreed with Reform on many issues, he had initially had concerns about public service spending:

“They [Reform] will spend money like drunken sailors. I think we’re all sober sailors now. Since I raised this, Reform have clarified their position on welfare spending. Nigel has made it clear he does not want to reduce overall benefits but wants to provide more support for families with children.”

Kruger is now the second sitting member of Reform UK. Before joining the party in 2024, Lee Anderson, a former Tory MP, sat as an independent. Following the resignation of Rupert Lowe and James McMurdock, Reform now has five MPs in the Commons.

Kruger’s background includes serving as a speechwriter for former Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron, authoring the “hug hoodie” speech, and working with Boris Johnson while he was foreign secretary. In 2022, he spoke in Parliament on the US abortion ban, advocating for women’s bodily autonomy, and in 2023 he participated in a National Conservatism Conference discussing traditional family values, which Prime Minister Rishi Sunak publicly distanced himself from.

Kruger is the son of TV chef Prue Leith, an Old Etonian, and a graduate of Edinburgh and Oxford Universities. He has also been a director at the Centre for Policy Studies.

A Labour spokesperson dismissed Farage’s recruitment of former Tories, saying it would not provide a viable blueprint for Britain and would only burden working people. Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper criticised the Conservatives as “a shell of their former selves” and claimed that Farage’s party was increasingly indistinguishable from the Tories: