BBC
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’ defection comes as Reform members head to Birmingham for the party’s annual conference.
She 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.
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