For weeks, the unassuming facade of Boisdale restaurant in Belgravia, a short walk from Victoria station, has served as a discreet backdrop for the most consequential political defections in recent memory. Long a fixture of Westminster’s centre-right social scene — and once a rallying point against Tony Blair’s indoor smoking ban — the venue became an unofficial hub for Nigel Farage’s Reform UK. Interviews and negotiations were conducted over oysters, venison, and claret. But the association was so strong that Conservative MPs who would ordinarily have dined there began deliberately avoiding it, fearful that being spotted at Boisdale was a clear signal they were planning to defect.
Now, with the passing of the 7 May deadline Mr Farage set for defectors to be accepted, those Tory figures may feel safe to return. The deadline, announced on 15 January at the press conference welcoming Robert Jenrick to Reform, was intended to create urgency. Mr Farage declared that the local and devolved elections on 7 May would be the day the Conservative Party ceased to be a national party, and he urged wavering Tories to stop dithering. Yet the expected stampede never materialised. The last MP to switch sides was former home secretary Suella Braverman on 26 January. Before her, only Romford MP Andrew Rosindell had taken the plunge, on 18 January. Since then, the only defection of any significance came from outside the Tories: ex-Newham mayor Sir Robin Wales joined from Labour on 4 March.
From a watch list of 11 Conservative MPs identified as potential defectors after Mr Jenrick’s move, only Mr Rosindell and Ms Braverman actually switched allegiances. Names such as Katie Lam, Lewis Cocking, Sir John Hayes, Mark Francois, Esther McVey, Sir Desmond Swayne, Matt Vickers, Joy Morrisey and Bradley Thomas all stayed put. Even Conservative peers rumoured to be ready to defect — including Lord David Frost and Lord Stewart Jackson, who had less to lose than sitting MPs — did not join. Had a critical mass moved, it could have been curtains for the Conservatives after three centuries of history. Instead, the deadline failed to deliver the incentive Mr Farage had hoped for.
Ambition, local loyalties, and a husband’s membership
The motivations behind the defections that did occur are far from straightforward — and the most publicised switches owed as much to personal calculation as to ideological conviction. Robert Jenrick, the former minister who was the most high-profile defector, is widely understood to have been driven by ambition. He was sacked from Kemi Badenoch’s shadow cabinet after it emerged that screenshots of his defection letter and media strategy had been handed to the Tory leader’s office, exposing a plan to strike a devastating blow to his former party. Mr Jenrick had calculated that he could not replace Ms Badenoch as Conservative leader but could position himself as a potential heir to Mr Farage at Reform.
Andrew Rosindell’s decision, according to friends, was far more closely tied to his local identity as “Mr Romford”. One Conservative MP said: “All Andrew’s councillors were about to go to Reform so he felt he had to go with them.” Mr Rosindell himself cited disagreements with the Conservatives over the Chagos Islands deal and a perceived unwillingness of the party to take accountability for past decisions. Suella Braverman’s move was coloured by the fact that her husband had already been a signed-up member of Reform UK, while she had become so detached from the Tories that she was rarely seen in parliament. She stated that the Conservative Party had “left the building”. Reform’s Scottish leader, Lord Malcolm Offord, was another whose switch was rooted in ambition: Conservative sources say his demands to be the Tory leader in the Lords were rebuffed, and days later he was standing next to Mr Farage. Among the few who appear to have joined for purely ideological reasons is Danny Kruger, who declared that “the Conservative Party is over, over as a national party.” Other Tory figures who might have been expected to defect — Sir Jake Berry, Nadine Dorries, Marco Longhi, Jonathan Gullis, and Dame Andrea Jenkyns — were no longer in parliament.
Reform’s internal unease
Even though Mr Farage failed to attract the critical mass of defectors he had hoped for, the number of ex-Tories now occupying senior positions within Reform has become a source of tension within the party’s base. According to one support tracker, roughly 9 per cent of Reform’s backing is described as “wobbly”, with supporters uncomfortable with the party being perceived as “Tory 2.0”. One long-time ally of Mr Farage said: “People do not want failed Tories back in government. They want something new and Nigel has allowed himself to get distracted.” This sentiment is widely seen as a factor behind the steady stream of defections from Reform to Rupert Lowe’s newly formed Restore Britain party — a right-wing to far-right outfit that has already attracted seven Reform councillors in Kent alone.
Tory MPs who were on the target list, however, dispute the “Tory 2.0” label. Privately, several have cited a range of reasons why Reform has become an unattractive landing spot. They point to a lack of clear policies, the way Reform “took out” their friends in the previous election, and ongoing concerns over the presence of racists within the party. There is also a suspicion that Reform is full of “grifters on the take”, with scandals over Mr Farage receiving £5 million and deputy leader Richard Tice’s tax affairs — reports suggest he avoided corporation tax through his property company and transferred shares worth millions into an offshore family trust in Jersey. As one Conservative MP put it: “Why would I want to join a party which is not really conservative, is never in parliament for the big votes on Chagos or veterans, where the leaders only believe in themselves and not in values?”
