Defecting from Tories to Reform ‘not enjoyable’, Danny Kruger says

Defecting from the Conservatives to Reform UK was “not an enjoyable experience”, Danny Kruger has said.

Mr Kruger, who had sat on Kemi Badenoch’s front bench as a shadow welfare minister, said he had hurt “good friends” as a result of the “painful” decision.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Political Thinking, he said he had approached Reform UK’s leader Nigel Farage, telling him: “You represent the best chance that the country has, but also those of us who have a Conservative disposition have.”

Shadow chancellor Sir Mel Stride has previously said Mr Kruger was “profoundly wrong” in his analysis of the Conservative Party’s future.

On his defection earlier this month, the MP for East Wiltshire said: “It was painful. It is painful and it was very painful on the day I did it. It was not an enjoyable experience.

“I’ve got a lot of good friends who I know are hurt. And only a few have had a go at me and they weren’t friends anyway.

“The people I care about are, I think, silently regretful and sorry.”