Today’s press conference is yet another stunning boost for Reform UK
Kruger’s defection is Kemi’s biggest blow yet (Image: Getty)
Nigel Farage has just dealt Kemi Badenoch the biggest blow to her hopes yet, and frankly it’s not clear how she’ll recover. Reform pulled off a major coup this morning, unveiling sitting Tory MP Danny Kruger as its latest – and most significant – defection.
Speaking from experience, the MP for East Wiltshire was one of the few lasting hopes for radical conservatives sticking with the Tory Party. He is far more substantial than any of the other Tories who’ve crossed the floor. Make no mistake, he was one of Kemi’s best thinkers, a philosophical powerhouse, a serious thinker. He’s very much drawn from the Robert Jenrick/Katie Lam/Nick Timothy wing of the party. Those with energy, radical thinking, and who gave hope to the remaining Tory radicals in the party’s grassroots that maybe things could get better.
A hope that there are people waiting in the wings to take the baton from Kemi Badenoch, sooner or later, and take the party back up to full revs.
His departure will be the biggest flashing warning light imaginable to those Tory Party members, and could well dent any remaining hope for the party’s future.
Only time will tell whether his defection is the beginning of a trickle of sitting MPs crossing the floor, but I have no doubt that those MPs named above – Jenrick, Lam, Timothy – will now be revisiting the question of whether the Tory Party has any future.
A sitting MP, regardless of it being one of Kruger’s calibre, is a major milestone in itself.
Bear in mind that under Farage’s old outfit, UKIP, he only managed to attract two defections and both were months before the election.
To get one this early in the parliament is another very troubling sign for the Conservative Party.
Mr Kruger did not go quietly. He used the bombshell press conference to throw a grenade back at his old camp.
“I’d hoped that after our defeat last year that the Conservative Party would learn the obvious lesson. That the old ways don’t work, that centrism is not enough, that real change is needed.
“But no. We’ve had a year of stasis and drift, and 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.”
It is not an outlandish prediction to make, that the bars, cafes and private offices of Parliament will be filled with deeply serious hushed discussions about whether to join Mr Kruger, or whether the Tories can afford to wait until after next May’s local elections before launching a coup against Ms Badenoch.
The Tories gather in Manchester in just a couple of weeks for their annual conference. It will not be a happy affair.
