EX-TORY minister Andrea Jenkyns has defected to Reform UK after losing her seat.
Nigel Farage announced that Dame Andrea Jenkyns will stand as the party’s candidate for a newly created post of Mayor of Greater Lincolnshire.
Taking to the stage, she told press and party members that she is “joining the party of the brave” while “our once great country is at a crisis point”.
She declared her new political allegiance her “natural home” to the press conference which was celebrating the party reaching 100,000 members.
Reform leader Nigel Farage and chairman Zia Yusuf hailed the milestone, declaring: “We are going to replace the Conservatives as the Opposition.”
Dame Andrea insisted Reform is “surging and membership is soaring”.
She branded the Conservatives as a “sinking ship” and “possibly beyond salvageable”.
Elected to parliament in 2015, Dame Andrea famously gained the Morley and Outwood seat which had previously been held by Ed Balls.
However, she lost her seat in the Commons during the most recent general election, despite featuring Nigel Farage on a flyer.
The A5 leaflet was sent to voters in the battling constituency but did not include a picture of Rishi Sunak, the then Tory leader.
Defending her decision, she spoke out about wanting to unite with Reform UK, preventing a Labour “supermajority”, a US political term that swept across rhetoric in the summer.
Back in June, she was tipped was join Farage’s party but confirmed that she preferred the notion of unity after the election.
Last year, it was also revealed that Dame Andrea was the first Tory MP to submit a letter of no confidence while Rishi Sunak held the position of PM.
Today, the former education minister said: “I feel unfortunately the party has become tired. I’ve got amazing friends in the party… But I feel it has lost its way, very sadly.
“And Reform actually is more closely aligned… I think it’s actually my natural home.”
Mr Farage then joked: “The truth of it is that half a Conservative Party in Parliament should join reform, the other half should join the Lib Dems.”
He later claimed Reform will need to win “hundreds” of council seats at the local elections next May to prove it is on a path to winning power at the next general election.
Asked how many seats Reform will need to win, the party leader said: “Yes, we have to win a lot of council seats next year. We have to win and yes it is going to have to be in the hundreds to be credible.
“Is that an easy thing to achieve? No. Are we going to do it? Watch this space.”
Reform UK party won more than four million votes and five parliamentary seats in July with the party’s leader promising to change politics forever.
The conference today sits on the backdrop of new migration data, a topic Farage has never shied away from addressing.
