told GB News<\/a>: \u201cIf you are Conservative right-minded, then the future is Reform. The country is going to change a lot.<\/p>\n\u201cThe same people who thought that Brexit would not happen think that Reform will not happen. They are in for a shock.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said: \u201cI have joined. My husband joined a few months ago and I joined a month ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am sad for the Conservative party. I could see that I have not changed but the party has become less and less what I believe in. We let people down over what Brexit meant on laws, money and borders. We took back control but we did not do anything about it.<\/p>\n
\u201cReform is about changing the system \u2013 they won\u2019t change unless they do it differently.\u201d<\/p>\n
Caulfield said it was possible she could seek to return as an MP with Reform, adding: \u201cI will see what happens.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative party leader, told GB News that \u201cevery leader regrets losing people to another party\u201d.<\/p>\n
She added that others could leave \u201cbecause they don\u2019t like the new policies\u201d, such as her emphasis on \u201cno more lavish spending\u201d and cutting welfare, and agreed that her party faced a difficult period.<\/p>\n
She said: \u201cWhen a party has just had a historic defeat, we will have a very tough and bumpy time before we come back up again.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Reform is wary of accepting too many former Conservatives, as it could be portrayed as a retirement home for ejected MPs, Farage\u2019s party is aware it lacks any experience of government, and former ministers would provide this.<\/p>\n
Kruger, whose defection was announced at a press conference on Monday, has been appointed Reform\u2019s head of \u201cpreparing for government\u201d.<\/p>\n
The MP for East Wiltshire, who previously served as a political secretary to Boris Johnson, said: \u201cThe Conservative party is over. Over as a national party, over as the principal opposition to the left.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking to GB News about his defection, Kruger was at pains not to criticise Badenoch, saying she had \u201cdone an admirable job in very difficult circumstances\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cOn a personal level, I think she\u2019s shown real courage and resilience doing the hardest job in politics. So I\u2019m not going to attack her personally. I think any leader of the opposition would have had a tough time over the last year, but I do disagree with the strategy.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think what she and we should have done is a much more bold assertion of Conservative principles and policies over the last year. But here we are. I\u2019m not just rejecting the Conservatives, I\u2019m actually enthusiastically backing Nigel Farage and the Reform party, who I think have shown over the last year, and I hope with my appointment, this is demonstrated too, they have become a real, serious party of opposition.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Another senior Conservative has defected to Reform UK, with the former health minister Maria Caulfield saying she signed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":428790,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[748,393,4884,12,1144,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-428789","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-northern-ireland","13":"tag-scotland","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115213810396847277","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428789","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=428789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428789\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/428790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}