On All Souls’ Day 2024, Britain’s Conservative Party voted to bury itself. It was on November 2nd last year that the party announced it had made the fateful decision of electing Kemi Badenoch as leader.
Now, ten months later, the final shovelfuls of soil are being thrown on the party’s coffin. After disastrous local election results, tanking poll ratings, and the desertion of thousands of activists, one of the party’s most principled MPs has jumped ship.
Danny Kruger, member of parliament for East Wiltshire, announced on Monday that he had left the Tories and joined Reform UK. To an outsider, this may not look like a big deal: Kruger has never held a senior ministerial position and until Monday held only a mid-ranking position in the Conservative parliamentary party. But his defection is a major turning point.
For years, Kruger has been one of the main intellectuals of Britain’s conservative movement—a serious thinker, close to the party’s leading right-wing figures, and seen by many as a future Cabinet minister.
Kruger is an intellectual heavyweight—an admirer of Roger Scruton and one of the few Conservatives who seemed to have any idea what it actually means to be conservative. Before entering parliament, he was a speechwriter for future Tory PM David Cameron—a position he left to co-found a youth crime prevention charity.
His July speech—to an almost empty House of Commons chamber—on the need to defend Britain’s Christian heritage and identity is easily one of the most powerful of modern times.
He has also argued passionately against the assisted suicide bill, taking it to pieces forensically.
It says a lot about Kemi Badenoch’s poor judgement that she failed to put arguably her party’s brightest MP in a prominent role. Instead, ten months of her leadership have produced, in Kruger’s words, “a year of stasis and drift and the sham unity that comes from not doing anything bold or difficult or controversial.”
Kruger’s defection is therefore more than a personal decision. It is a line in the sand—a signal that the Conservative Party is no longer the natural home for serious conservatives. His argument on Monday was blunt: “The Conservative Party is over, over as a national party.” Reform UK, he said, is now “the best vehicle to win the next election and save the country from decline.”
For Nigel Farage, the recruitment of a conviction politician like Kruger is a breakthrough moment. Until now, many have dismissed Reform as a party of protest rather than government. Its stance on immigration is clear and popular, but the Reform UK leader is the first to admit his party needs a much broader policy agenda. Kruger changes that. He brings both intellectual depth and hard political experience—from the inner workings of No. 10 to the fights on the Tory backbenches over the ECHR and the Rwanda Bill. His new role, preparing Reform for government, is designed to show that Farage’s party is ready to rule.
It is also a heavy blow to Robert Jenrick, Kemi’s main rival for the leadership last year and presumed successor. Kruger was his closest ally on the Tory Right, and many assumed he would lead any future Jenrick leadership campaign. His defection signals either that he believes Jenrick will never become leader—or that it no longer matters if he does.
Most of all, Kruger’s move tells Conservative MPs something they have long feared: the torch of conservatism has passed to Reform. If a figure as serious as Danny Kruger thinks the party is finished, others on the Right will soon start to wonder whether it is time to jump too.
The Conservative Party had long ago lost its heart and soul. Now it has lost its brain too.
The Conservative Party Has Lost Its Brain
Danny Kruger attends an event on the second day of the annual Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham, central England, on September 30, 2024.
Justin Tallis / AFP
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On All Souls’ Day 2024, Britain’s Conservative Party voted to bury itself. It was on November 2nd last year that the party announced it had made the fateful decision of electing Kemi Badenoch as leader.
Now, ten months later, the final shovelfuls of soil are being thrown on the party’s coffin. After disastrous local election results, tanking poll ratings, and the desertion of thousands of activists, one of the party’s most principled MPs has jumped ship.
Danny Kruger, member of parliament for East Wiltshire, announced on Monday that he had left the Tories and joined Reform UK. To an outsider, this may not look like a big deal: Kruger has never held a senior ministerial position and until Monday held only a mid-ranking position in the Conservative parliamentary party. But his defection is a major turning point.
For years, Kruger has been one of the main intellectuals of Britain’s conservative movement—a serious thinker, close to the party’s leading right-wing figures, and seen by many as a future Cabinet minister.
Kruger is an intellectual heavyweight—an admirer of Roger Scruton and one of the few Conservatives who seemed to have any idea what it actually means to be conservative. Before entering parliament, he was a speechwriter for future Tory PM David Cameron—a position he left to co-found a youth crime prevention charity.
His July speech—to an almost empty House of Commons chamber—on the need to defend Britain’s Christian heritage and identity is easily one of the most powerful of modern times.
He has also argued passionately against the assisted suicide bill, taking it to pieces forensically.
It says a lot about Kemi Badenoch’s poor judgement that she failed to put arguably her party’s brightest MP in a prominent role. Instead, ten months of her leadership have produced, in Kruger’s words, “a year of stasis and drift and the sham unity that comes from not doing anything bold or difficult or controversial.”
Kruger’s defection is therefore more than a personal decision. It is a line in the sand—a signal that the Conservative Party is no longer the natural home for serious conservatives. His argument on Monday was blunt: “The Conservative Party is over, over as a national party.” Reform UK, he said, is now “the best vehicle to win the next election and save the country from decline.”
For Nigel Farage, the recruitment of a conviction politician like Kruger is a breakthrough moment. Until now, many have dismissed Reform as a party of protest rather than government. Its stance on immigration is clear and popular, but the Reform UK leader is the first to admit his party needs a much broader policy agenda. Kruger changes that. He brings both intellectual depth and hard political experience—from the inner workings of No. 10 to the fights on the Tory backbenches over the ECHR and the Rwanda Bill. His new role, preparing Reform for government, is designed to show that Farage’s party is ready to rule.
It is also a heavy blow to Robert Jenrick, Kemi’s main rival for the leadership last year and presumed successor. Kruger was his closest ally on the Tory Right, and many assumed he would lead any future Jenrick leadership campaign. His defection signals either that he believes Jenrick will never become leader—or that it no longer matters if he does.
Most of all, Kruger’s move tells Conservative MPs something they have long feared: the torch of conservatism has passed to Reform. If a figure as serious as Danny Kruger thinks the party is finished, others on the Right will soon start to wonder whether it is time to jump too.
The Conservative Party had long ago lost its heart and soul. Now it has lost its brain too.
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