Ex-Tory minister Nadine Dorries defects to Reform UK

Former Conservative minister Nadine Dorries has defected to Reform UK.

Speaking to the Daily Mail, the ex-MP for Mid-Bedfordshire said: "The Tory Party is dead. Its members now need to think the unthinkable and look to the future."

Dorries served as culture secretary and as a health minister under Boris Johnson, of whom she was a close ally.

She is the latest in a string of defections from the Conservatives to Reform UK, including former Welsh Secretary David Jones and ex-Tory Chairman Sir Jake Berry.

Dorries stepped down as an MP in 2023, after 18 years in the House of Commons, with an attack on then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and has since been critical of current leader Kemi Badenoch.

Writing in the Daily Mail, Dorries said the decision to leave the Conservatives was "the most difficult decision I've ever had to make, and it has taken me 12 agonising months to reach".

She said that her "core beliefs" were the same as when she first joined the Conservatives in 1995, adding that the party "had changed not me".

"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."

She acknowledged that she and her new leader would not agree on everything but were united on "the issues of law and order, immigration, the need to drastically cut public spending and boost growth and to support Ukraine".

"When we disagree, it will be in private."

She did not refer to the Online Safety Act which she first introduced to Parliament and which Farage has strongly criticised.

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