Kemi Badenoch insisted she will not be “blown off course” after a senior Tory MP defected to Reform UK. Nigel Farage announced East Wiltshire MP Danny Kruger had switched to his insurgent party at a press conference this morning.
Reacting to the news, the Conservative leader said the party “is not going to get blown off course by these sorts of incidents”. She added: “My response is that we are the only party who are working on dealing with the Government we have now.
“We want them to live within our means, the economy is in free fall, they don’t know what to do, and the Prime Minister is facing a political crisis.
“The only people who are drawing attention to that are the Conservative Party.
We are the ones who are making sure there is an effective opposition in Parliament to the Government.
“At the same time we were doing that Nigel Farage was in the US telling them that our country is like North Korea.
“We are focused on our national interest and in making sure we can get our economy going.”
It comes after Mr Kruger became the first sitting Conservative MP to defect to Reform where he will lead the party’s efforts to prepare for government.
Describing his move as “personally painful”, Mr Kruger declared his former party was “over”.
He said: “We have had a year of stasis and drift and the sham unity that comes from not doing anything bold or difficult or controversial and the result is in the polls.
“And those voters aren’t coming back, and every day, more and more people are joining them in deserting the party that has failed.”
Turning to his new job, Mr Kruger said: “Our mission is not just to overthrow the current system, it is to restore the system we need.”