Kemi Badenoch has been hit by a major blow on the eve of the Tory party conference with the defection of a veteran London Assembly member and former Conservative council leader to Reform.
Keith Prince, who stood down this week as the transport spokesman for the City Hall Conservatives, has decided to leave the group entirely to join Nigel Farage’s party.
He told The Standard on Saturday: “I have been with the [Conservative] party for 49 years. This would have been my 50th year.
“The party has left me. It’s not the party I joined. I remember the rise of Margaret Thatcher. We had a vision. We had a charismatic leader. We knew where we were going.
“I’ve got that same feeling about Reform. I think they have a very charismatic leader. I think they have a vision. I think they know where they are going. It’s really exciting to be involved in something at the beginning.”
It is the latest in a series of Tory defections to Reform that recently saw Tory MP Danny Kruger switch sides.
Mr Prince is a former Tory leader of Redbridge council and a London Assembly member since 2016. He is also a councillor in Havering.
He said he plans to contest his council seat for Reform in the London borough elections next May and to seek re-election as an assembly member in 2028.
Some Tories fear Mr Prince’s defection could be the first of several in east London. Havering is expected to be Reform’s number one target in the London borough elections.
Approached on Friday as rumours emerged about his imminent defection, he told The Standard: “I’m not defecting to Reform.”
He said on Saturday that the plan had been to announce his defection at the start of the Tory party conference on Sunday but news began to leak.
Susan Hall, leader of the City Hall Conservatives and the party’s former mayoral candidate, said on Saturday: “I’m very sad that Keith has gone. He was a valued member of the team.
“I will continue to put forward Conservative plans and fight for the party going forward.”
Mr Prince’s defection means that Reform now has two of the 25 assembly members at City Hall.
He will work alongside Reform’s first assembly member, Alex Wilson, who he describes as a “friend” and who is a former council colleague.
Speaking to The Standard, Mr Prince, whose wife is Nigerian, said: “I don’t have a problem with legal immigration. Where we have [employment] shortages, we probably do need young people, nurses and doctors. I would always welcome these people.
“But the issue is the number of people coming in illegally. The Tories have failed – and Labour has failed spectacularly. We have to stop the boats. This country grew by 750,000 people last year. We can’t house the number of people coming in.”
He added: “I’m a working-class boy. I went to grammar school. I feel part of it [with Reform]. They’re talking to my people.
“My [Tory] colleagues at City Hall are a great bunch of people, almost without exception. All the assembly members from all the parties are decent people.”
