Marco Longhi, the previous Conservative MP for Dudley North, has joined Nigel Farage’s Reform UK after accusing his outdated get together of getting been “captured by a left-wing influence masquerading as conservatism”.
He’s the third ex-Tory MP to defect to Reform UK since final yr’s normal election, following Aidan Burley and Dame Andrea Jenkyns.
Longhi, who misplaced his seat in July, claimed the Conservative Get together he as soon as recognized with had develop into “unrecognisable” and mentioned he might not stand by the “uniparty drift” in direction of a “left-wing agenda”. He pledged that, if re-elected, he would stay loyal to “the people,” reasonably than the get together management.
His defection coincides with a brand new “mega-poll” by Stonehaven, based mostly on 17,000 voters, suggesting that Reform UK would seize as much as 120 seats if a normal election have been held in the present day. It additionally signifies Labour would fall from its present 411 MPs to 278, whereas the Tories would rise to 157 seats from 121. Though Reform UK has solely 5 MPs at current, the ballot suggests its strongest beneficial properties might are available in East Anglia, Essex and far of northern England’s so-called purple wall.
Different former Conservative figures have gravitated in direction of Farage’s get together, together with Nick Sweet, who serves as Reform UK’s billionaire treasurer, and Tim Montgomerie, founding father of the ConservativeHome web site. Rael Braverman, husband of ex-home secretary Suella Braverman, additionally lately defected, although she dismissed any suggestion that she would possibly observe.
