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| Conservative MP Danny Kruger defects to Reform UK | Conservative MP Danny Kruger defects to Reform UK |
| (32 minutes later) | |
| Conservative MP Danny Kruger has become the first sitting Conservative MP to defect to Reform UK. | |
| Kruger has been an MP since 2019, and sits on Tory leader Kemi Badenoch's team as a shadow work and pensions minister. | |
| "The Conservatives are over," he told a press conference, sitting alongside Reform party leader Nigel Farage. | |
| Kruger said he had been "honoured" to be asked to help Reform prepare for government, and said he hoped that Farage would be the next prime minister. | |
| The East Wiltshire MP - a former political secretary to Boris Johnson when he was prime minister - said the Conservatives were no longer the main party of opposition. | |
| He said: "There have been moments when I have been very proud to belong to the Tory party", but added: "The rule of our time in office was failure. | |
| "Bigger government, social decline, lower wages, higher taxes and less of what ordinary people actually wanted." | |
| Although he said he had "great regard" for Badenoch, he said the Tory party was "divided" and had a "toxic brand". | |
| Describing his move as "personally painful", he said his "mission" with Reform would be to "not just to overthrow the current system, it is to restore the system we need". | |
| Kruger is the second sitting MP to join Reform UK. Lee Anderson, who was previously a Tory MP, sat as an independent before joining Reform in 2024. |