Tories are ‘over’, says MP Kruger as he defects to Reform

It’s a big blow to the Tories, who are still struggling to find their feet after last summer’s election wipeout. The first sitting Conservative MP to make the move, Kruger was once David Cameron’s speechwriter, penning what became known as Cameron’s “hug a hoodie” speech on crime and its causes. He was also political secretary to Boris Johnson when Johnson was prime minister. But since becoming an MP his sympathies have long strayed beyond the confines of what Kruger bemoaned at Monday’s press conference as “centrism”.

A Brexiteer and religious social conservative, Kruger joined fellow anti-abortionist James Orr for a barbecue last month in the Cotswolds with US Vice President J.D. Vance, and spoke at Orr’s National Conservative 2023 conference. During that speech Kruger argued that “the normative family” - namely a mother, father and children - was “the only possible basis for a safe and successful society.”

The pair also share financial links: in 2021 Kruger’s New Conservatives caucus received the last publicly declared UK political donation – for £50,000 – from the Legatum Institute, since rebranded Prosperity. The pro-Brexit think tank is working alongside Orr’s Centre for a Better Britain with aims to build policy, hire advisers and train candidates for Reform ahead of 2029. Both groups sponsored events at Reform’s party conference earlier this month.

Another of the New Conservatives’ donors from 2023 is David Lilley, a metals trader who has since switched his support to Reform, and the Centre for a Better Britain, of which he is one of four founders and directors.

And yet, at the Reform conference earlier this month, another Tory defection exposed a growing unease within Reform about the number of Conservative “retirees” jumping ship. There were many grumbles about the arrival of former culture secretary Nadine Dorries to the party, not least because she was the chief architect of the Online Safety Act, of which Farage and others have been highly critical.

Kruger may prove less of a headache for Reform, but the question remains: what is the optimum number of defections for it to absorb? Senior figures argue the arrival of disaffected Conservatives helps plug an experience gap. While that is undeniably true, the more ex-Tories join, the more it undermines their argument that Reform presents a genuine alternative to the two main parties.

Photo by CARLOS JASSO/AFP via Getty Images