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Danny Kruger has joined the Tory exodus to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.
He becomes only the second sitting MP to cross the floor after Lee Anderson, but becomes part of a wider group of former Conservatives now working under the Reform banner.
The BBC reports:
Kruger has been an MP since 2019, and [sat] 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’.
That’s the official version. But readers of Vox Political will know that Kruger’s relationship with the Conservatives has been uneasy for years – and his eventual defection hardly comes as a surprise.
Early controversies
Back in 2020, Kruger voted loyally for Boris Johnson’s Internal Market Bill – legislation that even ministers admitted would break international law and trash the Withdrawal Agreement Johnson himself had signed with the EU.
I pointed out at the time that he was one of 340 Tory “lawbreakers” who dutifully turned the UK into a rogue state.
Only a month later, he supported the government’s Agriculture Bill, voting down an amendment that would have protected British farmers from being undercut by lower-standard food imports.
As I noted then, this wasn’t just a betrayal of farmers – it was a betrayal of ordinary consumers who would be left eating chlorine-washed chicken and hormone-fed beef. See my piece here.
The New Conservatives and growing dissent
By 2023 Kruger had become a co-founder of the New Conservatives alongside Miriam Cates, pushing a hard-right programme of tax cuts, immigration caps and withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights. His position put him at odds with the Sunak-era leadership, and he increasingly appeared as a voice of discontent.
He defended Suella Braverman when she accused the police of bias over pro-Palestinian marches, and was part of the small backbench faction willing to needle the front bench over “culture war” issues.
Warning of “obliteration”
In January 2024, he openly admitted that the Conservative Party had left the UK “sadder, less united and less conservative” than when it took office in 2010 – and warned that the party risked “obliteration” at the next election.
That’s not the language of a man with faith in his own party’s future.
Harder line on immigration and deportation
Kruger appeared in parliamentary coverage of the Rwanda Bill, taking positions that aligned with the New Conservatives’ harder line on immigration and deportation policy. He was among MPs pushing back against aspects of the government’s proposals, reflecting the internal Tory splits that were growing during this period.”
A sympathetic ear to Reform UK
When Lee Anderson defected to Reform in March 2024, Kruger went on Politics Live to call it a “wake-up call” for the Conservatives. At the time, I suggested this looked like a man testing the water – and it turns out that was exactly what he was doing.
By February 2025 he was still speaking on ethical issues in Parliament – warning that changes to the Assisted Dying Bill risked undermining impartial safeguards – but his wider rhetoric suggested a man already looking for a political home elsewhere.
And now…
So here we are. Kruger has jumped ship, and with Farage now boasting that he has former Tory MPs on his front bench, it is clear the trickle of defections could become a flood.
But let’s not rewrite history.
Danny Kruger didn’t suddenly become disillusioned with the Conservatives last week.
His parliamentary record shows that he was never truly comfortable inside the Tory tent – and that he’s been edging closer to Reform UK for at least two years.
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Danny defects to Reform UK – but was he ever comfortable with the Tories?
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Danny Kruger has joined the Tory exodus to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.
He becomes only the second sitting MP to cross the floor after Lee Anderson, but becomes part of a wider group of former Conservatives now working under the Reform banner.
The BBC reports:
That’s the official version. But readers of Vox Political will know that Kruger’s relationship with the Conservatives has been uneasy for years – and his eventual defection hardly comes as a surprise.
Early controversies
Back in 2020, Kruger voted loyally for Boris Johnson’s Internal Market Bill – legislation that even ministers admitted would break international law and trash the Withdrawal Agreement Johnson himself had signed with the EU.
I pointed out at the time that he was one of 340 Tory “lawbreakers” who dutifully turned the UK into a rogue state.
Only a month later, he supported the government’s Agriculture Bill, voting down an amendment that would have protected British farmers from being undercut by lower-standard food imports.
As I noted then, this wasn’t just a betrayal of farmers – it was a betrayal of ordinary consumers who would be left eating chlorine-washed chicken and hormone-fed beef. See my piece here.
The New Conservatives and growing dissent
By 2023 Kruger had become a co-founder of the New Conservatives alongside Miriam Cates, pushing a hard-right programme of tax cuts, immigration caps and withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights. His position put him at odds with the Sunak-era leadership, and he increasingly appeared as a voice of discontent.
He defended Suella Braverman when she accused the police of bias over pro-Palestinian marches, and was part of the small backbench faction willing to needle the front bench over “culture war” issues.
Warning of “obliteration”
In January 2024, he openly admitted that the Conservative Party had left the UK “sadder, less united and less conservative” than when it took office in 2010 – and warned that the party risked “obliteration” at the next election.
That’s not the language of a man with faith in his own party’s future.
Harder line on immigration and deportation
Kruger appeared in parliamentary coverage of the Rwanda Bill, taking positions that aligned with the New Conservatives’ harder line on immigration and deportation policy. He was among MPs pushing back against aspects of the government’s proposals, reflecting the internal Tory splits that were growing during this period.”
A sympathetic ear to Reform UK
When Lee Anderson defected to Reform in March 2024, Kruger went on Politics Live to call it a “wake-up call” for the Conservatives. At the time, I suggested this looked like a man testing the water – and it turns out that was exactly what he was doing.
By February 2025 he was still speaking on ethical issues in Parliament – warning that changes to the Assisted Dying Bill risked undermining impartial safeguards – but his wider rhetoric suggested a man already looking for a political home elsewhere.
And now…
So here we are. Kruger has jumped ship, and with Farage now boasting that he has former Tory MPs on his front bench, it is clear the trickle of defections could become a flood.
But let’s not rewrite history.
Danny Kruger didn’t suddenly become disillusioned with the Conservatives last week.
His parliamentary record shows that he was never truly comfortable inside the Tory tent – and that he’s been edging closer to Reform UK for at least two years.
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