Another former Conservative MP has announced that he has joined Reform UK, saying it is the only party that has grasped “the scale of our national peril”.
Adam Holloway, who represented Gravesham in Kent between 2005 and 2024, said on Wednesday he had become the latest ex-MP to join Nigel Farage’s party.
The 59-year-old former Army officer said: “There comes a moment for many soldiers – and most politicians – when you realise the battle you think you’re fighting isn’t the one your leaders are waging.
“That moment came for me watching Kemi Badenoch tell Trevor Phillips there are real differences between Reform UK and the Conservatives. She was right.
“The difference is the Reform leadership and voters grasp the scale of our national peril and back a party serious about addressing it.”
Mr Holloway is at least the eighth former Tory MP to have joined Reform since the last election, following former party chairman Sir Jake Berry, former Wales secretary David Jones and Dame Andrea Jenkyns, who won the Greater Lincolnshire mayoralty for the party in May.
Having served in the Grenadier Guards for five years, including during the Gulf War, Mr Holloway worked as a journalist for ITV and ITN before his election to Parliament in 2005.
A strong supporter of Brexit, he was briefly a whip under Boris Johnson and Liz Truss and was one of six Tory MPs to vote against censuring Mr Johnson after he was found to have misled the Commons over the Partygate scandal.
He was himself reprimanded by Parliament’s standards watchdog after improperly attempting to prevent the release of a character reference he had provided for former Tory colleague Charlie Elphicke, who was jailed for two years in 2020 for sexual assault.
He lost his seat in last year’s general election, falling 2,712 votes behind Labour’s Lauren Sullivan.
During the campaign, he told voters that backing Reform was “effectively taking a vote from me” and “helping Labour”.
Mr Farage said he was “delighted” to welcome Mr Holloway to the party, saying his parliamentary and military experience would be “vital” ahead of the next election.
He added: “His bold move shows that we are the only serious option in Kent and is testament to the fantastic work our councillors are delivering across the region.”
A Conservative source said: “Adam Holloway claims he is still a conservative, but is joining a party that wants to increase benefits and nationalise industry.
“We wish him well in his new high tax and high spend party.”
