With Robert Jenrick’s defection, the number of current or former parliamentarians to have joined Reform from the Conservatives has risen to 18. Some of the best known are likely to be prominent voices for Nigel Farage’s party in the run-up to the next election.
There are others within the Conservative party thought to have considered their position in recent months. But Farage has claimed that the value of such additions to his ranks is dropping – and said he would accept no further defectors from the Tories after the May elections, arguing that by then his party’s strength would be so clear that they would have little to add.
Here are some of the most prominent figures on both sides of that divide.
Those who have already gone
- Lee AndersonLee Anderson defected from the Conservatives in 2024. Photograph: Leon Neal/Getty Images
The former Labour councillor and Conservative MP became the first ever Reform MP when he defected in 2024. Anderson left the Tories shortly after having the whip removed for refusing to apologise for saying Islamists had “got control” of Sadiq Khan, the Muslim mayor of London.
The combative member for Ashfield became known by his detractors as “30p Lee” after he blamed food poverty on a lack of cooking skills and insisted meals could be cooked for about 30p a day.
His working-class Nottinghamshire background and blunt speaking style provide a contrast with Farage.
- Nadine DorriesNadine Dorries announces her defection to Reform in September. Photograph: Andrew Matthews/PA
Nadine Dorries defected to Reform in September, saying the Conservative party was “dead”.
A close ally of Boris Johnson, she served as culture secretary until 2022 before resigning a year later when she was blocked from getting a peerage.
After months of secret talks conducted at a Mayfair club, Dorries – a former contestant on the ITV reality show I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here! – said the Conservatives had left her and that her values were now more aligned with Reform.
She was critical of the Tories’ treatment of her, writing in her memoir about what she saw as a conspiracy by a faction including Michael Gove and Dominic Cummings to control the party.
- Danny Kruger
Reform MP for East Wiltshire
Danny Kruger joined Reform UK in September last year. Photograph: Ben Whitley/PA
The softly spoken Kruger was seen as an unexpected choice for Reform, not least because he was previously a prominent advocate of compassionate conservatism, having written David Cameron’s 2006 “hug a hoodie” speech.
As a former Telegraph leader writer and fellow of the rightwing thinktank the Legatum Institute, Kruger was seen as giving Farage’s party some intellectual heft it previously lacked.
He has been put in charge of making sure the party’s policies are costed and that it is ready for government.
- Nadhim Zahawi
Former Conservative chancellor
Nadhim Zahawi with Farage after announcing his defection. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
Zahawi’s defection earlier this week was arguably the riskiest the party has accepted so far.
The former Tory MP gives the party ministerial experience, having previously been chancellor, education secretary and Tory chair – though none for longer than 10 months.
But he also brings with him baggage, having been sacked as Tory chair in 2023 over his tax affairs. Some have argued Zahawi’s move risks depicting Reform as the Conservatives 2.0.
Those who may yet go
- Jacob Rees-Mogg
Former business secretary
Jacob Rees-Mogg alongside Farage at a farmers’ protest in London. Photograph: Henry Nicholls/AFP/Getty Images
The high-profile Brexit campaigner has long been talked about as a possible defector to Reform. Even before the Brexit referendum, he proposed a pact between the UK Independence party, which Farage led at the time, and the Conservatives.
Rees-Mogg lost his seat at the 2024 election, since when he has maintained a high profile with a reality television show and a regular slot as a host on GB News.
He has continued to call for Reform and the Conservatives to unite, saying on Thursday: “I don’t see that my going to Reform or leaving the Tory party would advance that in any way.”
- Brandon Lewis
Former Northern Ireland secretary
Brandon Lewis has been seen as an obvious potential next defector. Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images
Lewis ran Zahawi’s leadership campaign in 2022 and has been seen as an obvious potential next defector. An ally of Boris Johnson, he served as the former prime minister’s Northern Ireland secretary from 2020 to 2022 and helped draw up plans for a no-deal Brexit.
Possibly the biggest hurdle to Lewis joining Reform is the fact he campaigned to stay in the EU in 2016, and then voted for Theresa May’s proposed deal.
- Suella BravermanSuella Braverman was home secretary in Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss’s cabinets. Photograph: Phil Noble/AP
Suella Braverman earned a reputation as one of the most aggressively rightwing home secretaries in recent history, calling the idea of sending asylum seekers to Rwanda her “dream” and accusing protesters in London of being “Guardian-reading, tofu-eating wokerati”.
Braverman’s cabinet career ended after she wrote an article for the Times accusing the Metropolitan police of being biased.
Since then her husband, Rael, has joined Reform and then left it again after the party criticised her over the 2022 Ministry of Defence Afghan data leak.
- Katie Lam
Conservative MP for Weald of Kent
Katie Lam is a close ally of Robert Jenrick. Photograph: Jacob King/PA
A former adviser to Braverman and to Boris Johnson, Lam has made a name for herself as one of the most stridently anti-immigration MPs since entering parliament in 2024.
Last year Lam was criticised for telling the Sunday Times that she believed a large number of legal migrants should “go home” in order to create a “culturally coherent group of people”.
She is seen as a rising star within the Conservative party but she is also a close ally of Jenrick, having supported his leadership bid in 2024.
- Nick Timothy
Conservative MP for West Suffolk
Nick Timothy in the House of Commons. Photograph: House of Commons/PA
A former adviser to May in the Home Office and Downing Street, Timothy sits on the anti-immigration right of the Conservative party. He has previously argued: “We must accept that not every migrant is the same, and not every culture is equal.”
Timothy is another ally of Jenrick, but his chances of defection plummeted on Thursday afternoon when he accepted the shadow justice portfolio that Jenrick had just vacated.