Recycled Tories are damaging Reform's claim to be 'different'

Despite her hopes of rebuilding the Tories into an election-winning superpower, Kemi Badenoch’s Conservative Party increasingly resembles the dying days of the Soviet Union: barely a day goes by without somebody defecting to the enemy. Almost all of the escaping Tories have jumped ship to Reform. With the defection of former health minister Maria Caulfield this week , 13 former Conservatives MPs are now known to have made the switch.

For many months, though, the Reform leadership has been working hard behind the scenes to land a bigger prize: not another washed-up Westminster no-mark, but a current, sitting Conservative MP. This week, they got their man. On Monday, East Wiltshire MP Danny Kruger announced his defection to Nigel Farage’s party, claiming the Conservative Party “is over”