With Robert Jenrick’s defection, the number of current or former parliamentarians to have joined Reform from the Conservatives has risen to 18. Some of the best known are likely to be prominent voices for Nigel Farage’s party in the run-up to the next election.
There are others within the Conservative party thought to have considered their position in recent months. But Farage has claimed that the value of such additions to his ranks is dropping – and said he would accept no further defectors from the Tories after the May elections, arguing that by then his party’s strength would be so clear that they would have little to add.