Becky MortonPolitical reporter
EPANigel Farage has insisted Reform UK will not become the Conservative Party 2.0 following the defection of former senior Tory Robert Jenrick.
The party’s leader wrote in the Telegraph that Reform was “not a rescue charity for every panicky Tory MP” and any potential defectors would have to be prepared to admit publicly that the previous Conservative government “broke the country”.
Reform’s deputy leader Richard Tice told the that Jenrick was “a great new asset” who brought ministerial experience.
However, with around 20 former Conservative MPs joining the party in recent months, critics have argued Reform is becoming a home for failed Tories rather than a new force in British politics.
Farage has said his party will not accept any more defectors after local elections are held on 7 May.
“Any Conservative MP who still clings to the hope that their party can recover and waits until May 8 to try to leave the sinking ship does not understand how rapidly things are changing out in the country,” he wrote in the Telegraph.
“Trying to use Reform as a lifeboat to save their own political skins will not wash. We have no interest in rescuing political failures.”
He said any defectors would have to bring some benefits to the party and “truly believe in Reform’s fundamental values of family, community and country”.
Senior Conservatives believe some other MPs could also defect, though they are not expecting a big wave of departures imminently.
Reform has also said a “well-known Labour figure” will defect to the party next week.
Former Labour MP and Brexit campaigner Baroness Kate Hoey, who has sat as a non-affiliated peer since 2020, is among those rumoured to be a possible defector.
Asked if she could join Reform, Tice – who stood in for Farage due to illness – told the ‘s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme that Baroness Hoey was “a wonderful person” and “a good friend” but refused to confirm whether she would defect.
Baroness Hoey has not said whether she plans to defect or not, but told Sky News she had not been a Labour member for more than eight years and was “not sure I’m that well-known”.
Some commentators have suggested senior Tory defectors could prompt power struggles within Reform, with Jenrick touted as a possible shadow chancellor, along with Tice and Reform’s head of policy Zia Yusuf.
Asked if he would be happy to see Jenrick as shadow chancellor, Tice said the party had “a great range of talent” and Farage would “make his decision about different roles at the appropriate time”.
Jenrick joined Reform on Thursday, hours after he was sacked from the Conservative shadow cabinet for plotting to defect.
As a former immigration, housing and health minister, Jenrick brings government experience to Reform.
However, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said: “Bringing in Robert Jenrick, who presided over soaring NHS waiting lists and the collapse of the criminal justice system in this country, to solve the problems this country faces is like calling out the arsonists to put out the fire.”
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has claimed her party was stronger and more united since Jenrick left, saying he was not “a team player”.
