Danny Kruger has become the first sitting Conservative MP in the British parliament to switch to Nigel Farage's right-wing Reform UK party, reports "Politico".
Kruger - the MP for East Wiltshire, who was first elected in 2019, will lead the party's department preparing for government. "Reform UK" has been leading in opinion polls on national voting intentions since the spring of this year.
"The Conservative Party is finished. It is finished as a national party," Kruger said in a speech announcing the move.
Previously, from July to December 2019, Kruger worked as political secretary to Boris Johnson and as speechwriter to former Conservative leader David Cameron - famously writing a controversial speech before Cameron became prime minister in 2010.
At a press conference today, he said: "The flame of conservatism is passing from one torch to another", adding that " the torch is different, but the flame is the same".
He suggested that the reform embodied the idea that "the new torch is already lit, already brighter than the one it replaces, held high in firm and confident hands".
He criticised the Conservatives' 14 years in power, stating: "The government of our time in power was a failure. Bigger government, social decline, low wages, high taxes and less than what ordinary people actually wanted.
The former shadow work and pensions secretary is the first sitting Conservative MP to defect since last July's general election, after a number of former Conservative MPs joined the party.
Kruger claims that following the Conservatives' defeat in last year's general election "we've had a year of stagnation and deviation and the false unity that comes from not doing anything bold, difficult or controversial".
Tory leader Camille Badenoch has come under repeated criticism since becoming Tory leader as her party continues to lag in opinion polls.