Monday, 15th September 2025. The news broke as I was having my morning cuppa. Danny Kruger, the same Danny Kruger who had been the shadow work and pensions secretary until just hours earlier, was standing next to Nigel Farage as Farage declared himself finished with the Conservative Party. Completely done.
I could not believe my eyes.
Look, I’ve been covering Westminster gossip for the best part of a decade, and this left everyone flummoxed. Yes, we’d heard some mutterings about Tory MPs who are tired of it. But Danny Kruger? The 50-year-old East Wiltshire MP who’d been loyal blue through and through since 2019? Nobody saw this coming.
The Bombshell Moment
Imagine the scene at the May Fair Hotel that Monday morning. Farage walks in with that quintessential smirk of his. And then Danny Kruger steps up to the microphone and utters what I am convinced will become one of 2025’s most famous political quotes: “The Conservative Party is over.”
Not struggling. Not facing challenges. Over. Finished. Done.
I’ve seen my share of political defections over the years; they generally come clothed in diplomatic language about “different directions” or “policy differences”. Not this one. Kruger basically said the Tories are beyond saving, and he’s not sticking around to watch them sink.
Anyways, the man seemed genuinely torn up there. This wasn’t some conniving career manoeuvre, you could tell. His voice shook just a bit when he spoke of the difficulty of leaving “the party I’ve served as a member, an activist, an employee.” That landed differently from your standard political announcement.
Who Is Danny Kruger Anyway?
Right, quick history lesson. Danny Kruger isn’t a backbencher in search of headlines. Before Parliament, he was a journalist in the truest sense. He then served as a political secretary to Boris Johnson, which is proper Westminster insider stuff. When he was elected to his seat in 2019, he was an embodiment of everything the modern Conservative Party said it represented.
Traditional values? Check. Brexit supporter? Absolutely. Social conservative with strong Christian beliefs? Tick all the boxes. He was just the type of MP party leaders liked to put in front of the cameras.
I watched him during those early COVID debates. He is a passionate speaker who is not afraid to speak truth to power when he believes they’ve got it wrong. That’s what makes this whole thing so mental, as he was one of their own.
His seat, East Wiltshire, has been Tory since forever. Well, mostly. The borders shifted a little, but you get the picture. Safe Conservative territory where people want their MP to be, well, a real Conservative.
The Straw That Broke the Camel’s Back
So what pushed him over the edge? According to Danny Kruger himself, it was watching the party learn absolutely nothing from their crushing defeat in July’s general election.
“I hoped we would learn from that defeat,” he said on Monday. “We haven’t.”
Fair point, really. The Conservatives got absolutely walloped in July 2025. Lost seats they’d held for decades. Yet instead of serious soul-searching, there’s been more of the same Westminster bubble thinking.
Kruger reckons the party’s stuck in the past, unable to adapt to what voters actually want. And Reform? They’re offering something different. Something that speaks to people who feel ignored by the political establishment.
Reform’s Master Stroke
Farage knows exactly what he’s doing here. Getting Danny Kruger wasn’t just about adding another MP to Reform’s ranks (bringing them to six in total). It was about credibility.
Think about it. When someone with Kruger’s Conservative credentials says the Tory party is finished, that carries weight. It’s not coming from some disgruntled outsider; rather, from someone who was literally in the Conservative shadow cabinet that very morning.
But here’s the clever bit. Farage hasn’t just welcomed Danny Kruger as another MP. He’s put him in charge of what they’re calling their “preparation for government” unit. That’s seriously ambitious stuff. They’re not just planning to be an opposition party forever; they genuinely think they could be running the show.
My Take on What This Really Means
I’ll be honest with you; this feels massive. Not because Danny Kruger is some political superstar, but because of what his defection represents.
The Conservative Party is in proper trouble. Four election defeats if you count the locals. Members leaving in droves. Young people won’t touch them with a bargepole. And now one of their own MPs is publicly declaring them dead in the water.
That’s not normal political rough and tumble. That’s existential crisis territory.
Meanwhile, Reform is picking up momentum everywhere you look. They came second in loads of seats at the last election. They’re attracting former Conservative voters by the thousand. And now they’ve got Danny Kruger saying exactly what those voters have been thinking.
The Human Side
What really struck me about Monday’s announcement was how personal this clearly was for Danny Kruger. You could see the internal struggle written all over his face. This wasn’t easy for him.
He’s spent his entire adult political life as a Conservative. That’s his identity, his community, and his beliefs all wrapped up in one party. Walking away from that takes guts. Or desperation. Maybe both.
I keep thinking about his family and his friends back in East Wiltshire. What are they making of all this? Some will be furious. Others might be thinking, “About bloody time someone said it.”
What Comes Next?
The big question now is whether other Conservative MPs will follow Danny Kruger’s lead. Are there more defections coming? My gut says yes, but we’ll have to wait and see.
For Reform, this is Christmas morning, Easter Sunday, and their birthday all rolled into one. They’ve got legitimacy now. Proper political credentials. Someone who can stand up and say, “I tried to fix the Conservative Party from the inside. It can’t be done.”
As for the Tories? Well, they’re facing their worst nightmare as one of their own declares them finished. That’s not spin you can counter or criticism you can brush off. That’s an existential threat to everything they thought they knew about themselves.
Danny Kruger made the biggest gamble of his political life on 15th September 2025. Whether it pays off remains to be seen. But one thing’s certain; British politics will never be quite the same again.
