Former Conservative<\/a> minister Nadine Dorries has declared<\/a> \u201cthe Tory party is dead\u201d as she announced that she has defected to Reform UK.<\/a><\/p>\n The former culture secretary<\/a>, who was MP for Mid-Bedfordshire from 2005 to 2023, revealed her decision in her column <\/a>for the Daily Mail.<\/p>\n \u201cThe 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. Nigel and I will never agree about everything. Neither of us are political robots,\u201d she wrote. <\/p>\n Ms Dorries also said that \u201cit\u2019s time for change\u201d and \u201ctime make Britain great again\u201d, declaring the Tory Party \u201cdead\u201d.<\/p>\n She wrote: \u201cMy decision to leave the party I\u2019ve served for more than 30 years is possibly the most difficult I\u2019ve ever had to make, and it has taken me 12 agonising months to reach.\u201d<\/p>\n Her announcement came a day before the Reform UK party conference begins.<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Nadine Dorries was MP for Mid-Bedfordshire from 2005 to 2023 (PA Media)<\/p>\n The 68-year-old is the highest profile Tory to join Reform after defections from former party chair Sir Jake Berry, former Wales secretary David Jones and Dame Andrea Jenkyns<\/a>.<\/p>\n A Labour Party spokesperson said: \u201cNadine Dorries says the Tory party is dead \u2013 as one of the people who helped to kill it, she should know.<\/p>\n \u201cShe backed Boris Johnson through thick and thin despite the partying in Downing Street during the pandemic while people couldn\u2019t see their loved ones. And now she wants to help unleash the same chaos the Tories inflicted on Britain by joining Nigel Farage\u2019s Reform.\u201d<\/p>\n A Liberal Democrat source said: \u201cWe don\u2019t know who to feel more sorry for, Kemi Badenoch or Nigel Farage.\u201d<\/p>\n Ms Dorries wrote that her \u201ccore beliefs\u201d were the same as when she first joined the Conservatives in 1995, adding that the party \u201chad changed not me\u201d.<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Ms Dorries was thrust into the limelight in 2012 when she was suspended from the Conservative Party for appearing on I\u2019m A Celebrity\u2026 Get Me Out Of Here! (ITV\/Shutterstock)<\/p>\n She stepped down as an MP in 2023 after 18 years in the House of Commons, and accused former leader Rishi Sunak of \u201cdemeaning his office by opening the gates to whip up a public frenzy\u201d against her.<\/p>\n She also accused Mr Sunak of abandoning \u201cthe fundamental principles of Conservatism\u201d and said \u201chistory will not judge you kindly\u201d.<\/p>\n Ms Dorries, who was born in 1957 in Liverpool and grew up on a council estate, wrote in the Daily Mail: \u201cI have known Nigel Farage for some considerable time, and no-one can deny that he believes in what he says because he\u2019s been saying the same thing for more than 30 years.\u201d<\/p>\n She started her working life as a nurse before pursuing a career in business, opening a child daycare business before becoming a director at Bupa.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Ms Dorries was thrust into the limelight in 2012 when she was suspended from the Conservative Party for appearing on I\u2019m A Celebrity\u2026 Get Me Out Of Here! without informing the chief whip first. However, she was readmitted to the party in May 2013.<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Nadine Dorries was a staunch supporter of Boris Johnson (PA) (PA Archive)<\/p>\n Her first ministerial appointment was as minister of state for patient safety, suicide prevention and mental health, during which she garnered criticism for rejecting cross-party talks to discuss a package of mental health support for frontline workers during the pandemic.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n In her time in the role she was a frequent advocate for BBC reform, and led the now-ditched plan to privatise Channel 4.<\/p>\n Despite backing Liz Truss in the race for leadership following Mr Johnson\u2019s resignation, Ms Dorries decided not to continue as culture secretary when Ms Truss took over as prime minister.<\/p>\n Ms Dorries was embroiled in a string of controversies throughout her tenure as an MP.<\/p>\n In 2009, when MPs\u2019 expenses claims were revealed by the Daily Telegraph, she admitted she had got taxpayers to foot the bill for a lost \u00a32,190 deposit on a rented flat.<\/p>\n And in 2010, she was rebuked by parliamentary standards commissioner John Lyon for misleading her constituents on her blog about how much time she spent in mid-Bedfordshire, admitting that it was \u201c70% fiction\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":398885,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[12,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-398884","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"category-united-kingdom","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115149476139681786","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=398884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398884\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/398885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=398884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=398884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=398884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Nadine](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/8f44a83b1b31b425a58b64f4489c2b9eY29udGVudHNlYXJjaGFwaSwxNzIwMjI1MDI2-2.74540866.jpg\")
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