US EditionFormer Tory minister Maria Caulfield defects to Reform UK
Maria Caulfield and Danny Kruger are among 13 former Conservative MPs who joined Reform UK, signaling growing concern over Conservative leadership and party direction.
- On Monday 2025-09-16, Tory MP Danny Kruger defected to Reform UK, making him the first sitting Conservative MP to join since the general election.
- Kruger said Britain faced crises in the economy, border, roads, and army, and declared the Conservative Party was over and too late to save.
- Maria Caulfield, who previously served as a Conservative health minister and lost her parliamentary seat last year, has now joined Reform UK and praised it as the future for conservatives with right-leaning views.
- Kruger urged colleagues to join Reform, saying he hoped those who share his view on the country's crisis would save the country through Reform.
- The defections highlight growing dissatisfaction within the Tory right, signaling potential further challenges and losses for Conservative Party unity.
23 Articles
23 Articles
Miriam Cates: Kruger poses the Conservative Party a hard question - is it too broad a church?
Miriam Cates is the former MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge. The defection of Danny Kruger to Reform UK is a major blow to the Conservatives. If the Party was a football team, it would have just lost one of its best players. Kruger is a highly respected intellectual within the British conservative movement – and unlike former parliamentarians like Andrea Jenkyns, Jake Berry, and Nadine Dorries who have also jumped ship, a sitting MP to boot. In…
Former Tory MP Maria Caulfield defects to Reform UK
A former Tory health minister under Boris Johnson Maria Caulfield, who lost her seat in the 2024 election, has defected to Reform. Caulfield, who returned to nursing after being ousted as MP for Lewes by Lib Dem James MacCleary, told right-wing channel GB News that she had joined Reform a month ago. Caulfield said: “If you are Conservative right-minded, then the future is Reform. The country is going to change a lot.” At their party conference …
Ex-Tory health minister jumps ship to Reform
Another one bites the dust. Former Conservative health minister Maria Caulfield is the latest to defect to Reform UK after the party gained its first sitting MP since the general election on Monday. The ex-MP for Lewes is the latest Tory to jump ship to Nigel Farage’s outfit, proclaiming on GB News that ‘the future
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