BREAKING: Conservative MP Danny Kruger Defects to Reform

Conservative MP Danny Kruger has defected to Reform UK to head up the party’s Preparing for Government policy unit – the first sitting Tory MP to defect.

Kruger told a press conference in central London:

I have been variously a member, an activist, an employee of the Conservative Party for over 20 years, and I have many friends in the party, many good and decent people, which is why it is so personally painful for me to be doing what I’m doing today. …

I hoped, after our defeat last year, that the Conservative Party would learn the obvious lesson, that the old ways do not work, that centrism is not enough that real change is needed. 

But no, we 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 lost voters aren’t coming back, and every day, more and more people are joining them in deserting the party that has failed. And so this is my tragic conclusion, the Conservative party is over.

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. The old torch, once so great, is guttering, fluttering, held weakly in uncertain hands, but the new torch is already a light, already brighter than the one it is replacing, held aloft in firm and confident hands.

And while the torch is different, the flame is the same, the things we conservatives all believe in, respect for the law, respect for our traditions, personal liberty, national sovereignty, free markets, belief in family, community, country, the trinity of obligations that give us identity and security and purpose. …

Reform UK is a radical force, but not a revolutionary one. Our mission is not just to overthrow the current system. 

It is to restore the system that we need, limited government, accountable, power, a strong society, a state that works in the interests of the people, radical restoration, that is the reform the country needs now.

The Telegraph‘s Tony Diver notes that as the first sitting Conservative MP to defect to Reform, Kruger’s decision will come as a major blow to Kemi Badenoch.

When Lee Anderson defected to Nigel Farage’s party last year, he had already had the whip suspended by Rishi Sunak for rebelling against the Government. By contrast, Mr Kruger was still within the Tory fold this morning and is well-liked by many of the party’s MPs.

He is also considered a leading light of the Conservative Party, and had been tipped by some as a future leader of the party when Ms Badenoch moved on. He has become more high-profile in recent months through his campaign against assisted dying legislation. 

The MP was previously considered one of the closest allies of Boris Johnson, and served in Downing Street as his political secretary before the 2019 election.

His decision to leave the Tories, with a fiery speech declaring the “flame of Conservatism” has already passed to Reform, is a significant blow for Mrs Badenoch. This intervention is clearly designed to make her party appear ever-more irrelevant.

Kruger stressed he has a “great personal regard for” Badenoch but “the problem is the Conservative party”.

I have great personal regard for her. Actually, I think she’s done a very, very difficult job with courage and resilience, and I like her personally.

I think the problem is the Conservative Party. So any leader that the Conservatives have, I think would struggle with two essential problems. One is a divided parliamentary party in the country, and secondly, a toxic brand.

Kruger addressed his stint as Boris Johnson’s political secretary in 2019:

In those months before the 2019 election, which is when I became an MP so I was there through the Brexit battles, when we were in a minority government and had to try and get Brexit through very, very difficult circumstances. 

I remain enormously proud of Boris Johnson for his achievement. Then I think he was absolute man for the moment, and with help from Nigel and others, he won a great victory at that election. And all credit to him.

But I was very disappointed with what followed, firstly with the failure to properly grip the system of Whitehall itself, which Brexit was only a prelude to. We needed to restore the government to the people. That was what people voted for in 2019 and I think we failed to do that, particularly during Covid. And then, secondly, most obviously, with the wave of immigration that the government oversaw.

While, as a Conservative MP, in a sense, I bear some responsibility for that. In practice, I was arguing strongly against the degree of both legal and illegal migration that the government was presiding over, and I’m on record for having opposed measures that the government was introducing, particularly around the small boats crossings and I rebelled on the Rwanda deal as I didn’t feel that it extricated the British government from the snare of the human rights framework.