Former Conservative cabinet minister Nadine Dorries has become the latest to defect to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK after declaring that the “Tory Party is dead”.
In the most significant defection to date, Boris Johnson’s former Culture Secretary and best-selling author Nadine Dorries said that leaving the Conservative Party was the “most difficult decision” she’s ever had to make and had contemplated joining Nigel Farage’s Reform UK for the past 12 months.
Writing in the Daily Mail, the former MP for Mid-Bedfordshire said: “The Tory Party is dead. Its members now need to think the unthinkable and look to the future.”
“I believe you can feel a sense of dread taking hold of communities up and down the country,” Dorries continued. “The time for action is now, and I believe that the only politician who has the answers, the knowledge and the will to deliver is Nigel Farage.”
The former cabinet minister had become increasingly disaffected with her former party following the 2022 ousting of former PM Boris Johnson, which she described at the time as a “huge mistake” for the party and a “coup” orchestrated by the likes of ex-Goldman Sachs banker Rishi Sunak, who would later become prime minister after another alleged coup against Liz Truss.
Dorries has also been heavily critical of the toxic culture of Westminster, having claimed that dozens of Tory MPs engaged in sexual misconduct, including the use of gay “rent boy” prostitutes, and an MP using a date rape drug on a young female, which she claimed was covered up by the party.
On Thursday, the ex-Culture Secretary echoed figures like former President Ronald Reagan, in saying that her “core beliefs” have not changed substantially since joining the Conservatives in 1995 but rather that the party “had changed not me”.
The news of the defection was welcomed by Reform spokesman Zia Yusuf, who said that she will be an “asset” to the party.
“Nadine has laid into the Tory record and has announced that in her view the Tory party is dead, and we agree with her,” he told the BBC.
However, some have questioned the move, given the role Dorries played in helping pass the controversial Online Safety Act, which she argued was necessary to protect children from harmful content on the internet like pornography.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has been heavily critical of the legislation, branding it as “borderline dystopian” censorship, and has vowed to repeal the act should his party come into power.
While not specifically addressing the issue, Dorries said that she agrees with Farage on most issues and said that “when we disagree, it will be in private.”
Nevertheless, the defection will likely serve as a major boon to Reform, who opened its annual conference in Birmingham on Friday. The party, on the back of rising public anger over mass migration and the faltering economy, has held a commanding lead in the polls since the start of the year.
At the start of the conference, Mr Farage is reportedly set to predict that the country will not have to wait until the next scheduled election in 2029, predicting that he will become prime minister by 2027.
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