In a dramatic political rupture that underscores the deepening crisis inside the Conservative Party, Danny Kruger, the MP for East Wiltshire and a shadow minister in Kemi Badenoch’s team, announced on Monday that he has defected to Reform UK. Flanked by Nigel Farage at a press conference, Kruger declared that “the Conservative Party is over — over as a national party, over as the principal opposition to the left.”
The move marks the first time a sitting Tory MP has directly crossed to Reform, and represents the most high-profile defection since Farage’s party began attracting disillusioned Conservatives. It is a symbolic blow for Badenoch, who has tried to stabilize a party riven by infighting, electoral defeats, and plummeting public trust.
‘Personally painful’ but ‘politically necessary’
Kruger, who has been an MP since 2019 and previously served as David Cameron’s speechwriter and Boris Johnson’s political secretary, said leaving the party he had been loyal to for 20 years was “personally painful” but unavoidable.
“I was honoured to be asked to help Reform prepare for government,” Kruger told reporters. “Our mission is not just to overthrow the current system, it is to restore the system we need.”
He accused successive Conservative governments of betraying their voters, pointing to “bigger government, social decline, lower wages, higher taxes, and less of what ordinary people actually wanted.” What began as pride in the Tory mission, he said, had ended in disillusionment: “The rule of our time in office was failure.”
No by-election, no apology
Kruger confirmed he would not trigger a by-election in East Wiltshire, insisting that his mandate came from voters who wanted genuine Conservative values — values he claimed now only Reform UK embodies. He also defended past criticism of Reform’s economic stance, including his quip that they would “spend like drunken sailors.”
“Since then, they have corrected their position on welfare spending,” he said, praising Farage for pledging both to cut overall benefit costs and to “support families with children.”
Badenoch brushes off the blow
Responding to the news, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch tried to project calm, saying: “Danny has made his case very clear, that this is not about me. I can’t be distracted by that, and I’m not going to get blown off course by these sort of incidents.”
She framed the defection as part of the turbulence that comes with reforming a party in decline: “This is the sort of thing that is going to happen while a party is changing. I’m making sure people understand what Conservative values are.”
But observers inside Westminster noted that Kruger is no ordinary backbencher. A leading intellectual voice on the right and a prominent Brexiteer, his defection will likely embolden others questioning Badenoch’s authority and fuel speculation that Reform could soon eclipse the Tories as the main vehicle for Britain’s conservative voters.
Farage’s moment
For Nigel Farage, who has positioned Reform as the true opposition to Labour, Kruger’s switch is a powerful symbolic victory. The party now boasts five MPs in the Commons, following earlier defections and two wins in the 2024 general election.
Kruger’s move also comes at a time when Farage faces scrutiny over financial dealings, including questions about the funding of his Clacton constituency home. Nevertheless, Monday’s press conference allowed him to showcase momentum — and portray the Conservatives as a sinking ship.
Critics hit back
Opposition parties wasted no time framing the defection as further evidence of Tory decline. A Labour spokesperson dismissed Reform as a “Tory tribute act that would leave working people paying a very high price.”
Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper described the Conservatives as “a shell of their former self,” adding that Badenoch had “pushed lifelong Tories towards her party in their droves.”
Green Party co-deputy leader Rachel Millward went further, warning that Kruger’s defection “serves as a loud alarm bell for the rest of us about the threats to this country if Reform UK were ever to form a government.”
A controversial career
Kruger’s career has long courted controversy. As a young Tory aide, he was forced to step aside as a parliamentary candidate after calling for “a period of creative destruction” in public services. He was behind David Cameron’s infamous “hug a hoodie” speech, and in 2023 told a National Conservatism Conference that marriages between men and women were “the only possible basis for a safe and successful society.”
The son of celebrity chef Prue Leith, Kruger was educated at Eton, Edinburgh, and Oxford before working at right-leaning think tanks. A committed Brexiteer, he once hailed the referendum as “a heroic blow for a better model.”
Now, he has staked his future on Farage’s Reform UK — betting that Britain’s embattled right-wing voters will abandon the Conservatives and rally behind a party once dismissed as fringe.
Whether Kruger’s gamble pays off, or simply accelerates the fragmentation of the right, remains to be seen. But one thing is clear: with one of its own shadow ministers defecting, the Conservative Party’s struggle for survival has entered a new and perilous chapter.
