FORMER Tory culture secretary Nadine Dorries has defected to Reform UK.
A fierce ally of former prime minister Boris Johnson, Dorries said she had switched to Nigel Farage’s party because the Tories “cannot win the next election”.
“It removes election winning prime ministers, and replaces them with duds,” she added.
Writing for the Daily Mail, Dorries claimed it had taken her an “agonising” 12 months to decide to defect following 30 years as a Tory.
She wrote: “It was shortly after the last election that I was discussing the catastrophic failure of the Conservatives with a former party donor.
“‘If only the Conservative Party had behaved more like Conservatives when we were in power, we wouldn’t be in this mess,’ he told me despairingly.
“The penny dropped. I realised at that moment that my political principles have never altered. My core beliefs are the same today as they were the day I joined the Conservatives back in 1995. It was the Conservative Party that had changed, not me.”
She went on: “I know how an effective government can work when ministers are united behind core beliefs and objectives. But I’ve seen the other side too. How personal ambition, avarice, ego, hubris can corrupt.
“It’s time for change. Yes, it’s time to make Britain great again, to remember who we once were, what those who gave their lives in the Second World War fought for – and to remember why a government is elected. To keep us safe and for the nation to prosper. Only Nigel gets this.
“I know this may not be universally popular with all members of Reform, but I do believe there will need to be an accommodation on the right of the political spectrum at a future election.
“Jeremy Corbyn’s yet-to-be named new party will unite with the Greens, the pro-Gaza independents and the extreme Left to split the Labour vote.
“If the vote on the right is also split, it may pave the way for a Left-wing government even more extreme than the one we have now. And when that happens, to paraphrase a memorable headline: will the last person to leave the country please turn the lights off – if indeed we still have electricity.”
Dorries’s defection comes after another former Johnson minister, Andrea Jenkyns, also defected to Reform UK.
Jenkyns, who made headlines after giving protesters outside Downing Street the middle finger in 2022, is now the Reform mayor of Greater Lincolnshire.
In Scotland, MSP Graham Simpson has also jumped ship to Farage’s party.
