Fears of a Conservative exodus are growing within the party after one of its key thinkers quit to join Reform UK.
Danny Kruger, the son of Bake Off host Dame Prue Leith, yesterday became the first sitting Tory MP to defect to Nigel Farage's side.
The front bencher admitted it was 'personally painful' for him to leave the Conservatives after 20 years but said he had concluded they were 'over' as the main opposition party.
And Mr Kruger insisted that conservatism itself was more 'vibrant' than ever as the flame had been passed to Reform, where he will lead a Preparing for Government Unit.
His departure is a damaging blow to Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, whose strategy he has described as to 'disappear from public view'.
There are now fears that more senior Tories will follow the work and pensions spokesman out of the door after Mrs Badenoch told the BBC last week that anyone who disliked her leadership was 'welcome to leave'.
Writing in the Daily Mail, Mr Farage said: 'Danny is the first sitting Conservative MP to come over to Reform in this parliament. I am confident that he will not be the last.'
But he insisted that any potential defectors must 'support our political principles' and 'add something real' to Reform's mission, 'not merely out of desperation to save their own political skins'. Conservative peer and Brexit negotiator Lord Frost said: 'Many MPs on the Right will also be thinking: Maybe it's game over for the party. Maybe it's time for me to go too.'
Danny Kruger (pictured, right) yesterday became the first sitting Tory MP to defect to Nigel Farage's (pictured, left) side
It means Reform now has five MPs - the same as it had after the general election - despite two having quit the party in the past year
It comes after former culture secretary Nadine Dorries defected to Reform on the eve of its party conference this month, declaring: 'The Tory party is dead.'
Mr Kruger had not been tipped to join her, having told Parliament in July a Reform government would 'spend money like drunken sailors'.
And before the election he had said: 'I don't think [Reform] stand for genuine conservative ideas, I think they're just a destructive force. I think it will be a tragedy if they did end up replacing us.'
But yesterday, the Old Etonian, who wrote David Cameron's infamous 'hug a hoodie' speech, served as political secretary to Boris Johnson and was Robert Jenrick's campaign manager in last year's leadership contest, was unveiled by Mr Farage as Reform's fifth MP.
Mr Kruger revealed he had told the Tory chief whip only that morning that he was switching sides, having approached Reform in recent months. He told a press conference at a hotel in London: 'I hoped, after our defeat last year, that the Conservative Party would learn the obvious lesson that the old ways don't work, that centrism is not enough, that real change is needed.
'But no, we've had a year of stasis and drift and a sham unity that comes from not doing anything bold or difficult or controversial, and the result is in the polls.
'Those lost voters aren't coming back and every day more and more people are joining in deserting the party that has failed. And so this is my tragic conclusion: the Conservative party is over, over as a national party, over as the principal opposition to the Left.'
He is a noted right winger, the son of Bake Off host Prue Leith and a member of the Popular Conservatives group who led opposition to the assisted dying law
Prue Leith and her son confronted their different views on assisted dying during the filming of a Channel 4 show titled Prue and Danny's Death Road Trip
After the 2005 general election, Mr Kruger became chief speechwriter to new Tory leader David Cameron
He said the 'best hope for conservatism and for the country is Nigel's Reform', adding that the Tories were a 'toxic brand' which the public no longer trusted because of their record over the past 14 years in office.
'The flame [of conservatism] is passing from one torch to another,' he added. However, Mrs Badenoch insisted it was her party rather than Reform that had forced the departures of Angela Rayner and Lord Mandelson, adding: 'If people decide that they don't like the policies we have and they want to go to other parties, we will get other people who agree with us.'
Mr Jenrick told GB News: 'Obviously, I'm very sad to see Danny leave the Conservative Party. He's a personal friend of mine and he's somebody I hold in very high regard, but I disagree with him profoundly on this issue.'
Asked if he was tempted to join Reform, he said: 'No. Look, it's only a year into a four or five-year parliament. A lot can and will happen in the years ahead.'
