“Ex-culture secretary quits Conservatives for reform UK in blistering attack on her old party”

Former Conservative minister Nadine Dorries has detonated a political bombshell by defecting to Reform UK and declaring that the “Tory party is dead”.

The 68-year-old ex-culture secretary revealed her decision in her Daily Mail column, saying it was “the most difficult I’ve ever had to make” after more than 30 years in the Conservative Party. She explained it had taken her 12 agonising months to decide to leave, concluding that only Nigel Farage had the “answers, the knowledge and the will to deliver”.

“The time for action is now,” she wrote. “It’s time for change, time to make Britain great again.” Dorries added that although she and Farage would never agree on everything, neither of them were “political robots”.

Her dramatic defection comes on the eve of Reform UK’s annual party conference, where Farage is expected to showcase a growing list of high-profile Tory recruits. She now joins former Conservative chair Sir Jake Berry, ex-Wales secretary David Jones and Dame Andrea Jenkyns in switching allegiance to Reform.

Dorries, who represented Mid-Bedfordshire from 2005 until stepping down in 2023, insisted that her “core beliefs” remained the same as when she first joined the Conservatives in 1995. She argued it was the party that had abandoned its principles, not her.

Her departure prompted sharp responses across the political spectrum. A Labour spokesperson said: “Nadine Dorries says the Tory party is dead – as one of the people who helped to kill it, she should know. She backed Boris Johnson through thick and thin despite the partying in Downing Street during the pandemic. And now she wants to help unleash the same chaos the Tories inflicted on Britain by joining Nigel Farage’s Reform.”

The Liberal Democrats took a swipe at both sides, with a party source saying: “We don’t know who to feel more sorry for, Kemi Badenoch or Nigel Farage.”

Born in Liverpool in 1957 and raised on a council estate, Dorries began her career as a nurse before moving into business. She later became a director at Bupa and worked as an adviser to Oliver Letwin before entering Parliament.

Her political career was never short of controversy. In 2012, she was suspended from the Conservative Party for appearing on I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! without informing the chief whip. She was readmitted the following year. In 2009, during the MPs’ expenses scandal, she admitted charging taxpayers for a lost deposit on a rented flat. A year later, she was rebuked by the standards commissioner for misleading constituents about how much time she spent in her constituency.

A staunch supporter of Boris Johnson, she was appointed culture secretary in 2021, pushing for reforms to the BBC and spearheading a failed plan to privatise Channel 4. She remained loyal to Johnson after the Partygate scandal, accusing Rishi Sunak of “demeaning his office” and abandoning Conservative principles.

She stepped down as an MP in 2023, but her latest move marks her most dramatic break yet with the party she once defended so fiercely.

By throwing her weight behind Farage, Dorries signals Reform’s growing pull on disillusioned Conservatives. Whether her defection proves to be the death knell for the Tories, as she claims, or just another twist in her tumultuous career, it undeniably raises the stakes for Britain’s fractured right