Who has defected to Reform UK from the Conservatives and why?

Robert Jenrick has become the latest Tory MP to defect to Reform UK, making a scathing attack on his former party as he did so.

Accusing the Conservatives of lacking “stomach for the radical change this country needs”, the ex-shadow justice secretary is perhaps the most senior figure in the party to jump ship.

Here, the Press Association looks at some of the biggest names to defect from the Conservatives to Nigel Farage’s outfit.

– Robert Jenrick

The Newark MP, who served as immigration minister in Rishi Sunak’s government, blasted the party he has been a member of for nearly 30 years as he defected to Reform UK on Thursday.

He won his seat in a 2013 by-election after sitting Conservative MP Patrick Mercer resigned following a scandal over paid advocacy.

Announcing his move at a Westminster press conference, Mr Jenrick said: “I can’t kid myself any more.

“The (Conservative) party hasn’t changed and it won’t.”

– Nadhim Zahawi

The former Conservative chancellor, who led the Conservative government’s vaccine programme in the early days of the pandemic, joined Reform UK on Monday.

An ex-MP and minister, Mr Zahawi was sacked as Conservative Party chairman in 2023 after he was found to have breached the ministerial code over his tax affairs, later confirming he paid a nearly £5 million penalty to HMRC to settle the issue.

In a video message announcing his defection, he said Britain is “drinking at the last chance saloon” and “really does need Nigel Farage as prime minister”.

– Malcolm Offord

Reform UK gained its first member of the House of Lords when former Lord Malcolm Offord defected from the Tories in December.

But he quit the upper chamber on Thursday as he was named the new leader of the party in Scotland.

Mr Offord said he will be “campaigning hard” between now and the forthcoming Holyrood elections in May.

He said: “We (Reform UK) represent ordinary, decent, hard-working Scots who are fed up with mid-table mediocrity in Holyrood. Which is why we will be fielding Reform candidates in all 73 constituencies with one sole objective – to get Scotland back to the top of the table.”

– Danny Kruger

In September, Danny Kruger became the first sitting Conservative MP to defect to Mr Farage’s party.

The East Wiltshire MP was a member of Kemi Badenoch’s shadow front bench when he jumped ship.

He condemned his former party as “over” when he left, adding: “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.”

– Nadine Dorries

The former Conservative culture secretary declared her former party “dead” when she defected to Reform UK.

Announcing her decision in September, she said: “My decision to leave the party I’ve served for more than 30 years is possibly the most difficult I’ve ever had to make, and it has taken me 12 agonising months to reach.”

Before her election to Parliament as MP for Mid Bedfordshire in 2005, she worked for three years as an adviser to the former shadow home secretary and shadow chancellor Oliver Letwin.

Ms Dorries was thrust into the limelight in 2012 when she was suspended from the Conservative Party for appearing on I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! without informing the chief whip first.

However, she was readmitted to the party in May 2013.

A staunch loyalist to then-prime minister Boris Johnson, Ms Dorries was promoted to secretary of state for digital, culture, media and sport in September 2021. She stepped down as an MP in 2023 after 18 years in the House of Commons.

– Lee Anderson

Lee Anderson jumped ship to Reform UK, becoming the party’s first MP, after he lost the Conservative whip in February 2024.

He had made widely criticised remarks about Sir Sadiq Khan, claiming “Islamists” had “got control” of the mayor and London.

The Ashfield MP was made Reform UK chief whip after he won the seat he had held for the Conservatives since 2019 for the party in 2024.

He slammed the Tories for stifling free speech as he left to join Mr Farage’s party.

“And when I find myself suspended for speaking my mind – and, by the way, speaking up on behalf of millions of people up and down the country who agree with me – that for me is unpalatable,” he said. “It’s a shocker, if I’m honest.”

– Dame Andrea Jenkyns

Dame Andrea Jenkyns, the Reform UK mayor of Greater Lincolnshire, left the Tory party in November 2024.

She had served as Conservative MP for Morley and Outwood in West Yorkshire from 2015 until the 2024 general election, when the constituency was abolished.

Appointed assistant whip under the Johnson administration in September 2021, she was made a Department for Education minister in July 2022.

When she made the move, she said the Tory party had “become tired”.