Boris Johnson’s biggest fangirl has defected to Reform UK

Nadine Dorries has left the Tories (Picture: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Future Publishing via Getty Images)

An ex-Tory minister and arguably Boris Johnson’s biggest fan has defected to Reform UK.

Nadine Dorries, who has previously served as culture secretary and health minister under the former Conservative PM, said she believes her former party is ‘dead’.

Speaking to MailOnline, she said it took her a year to reach ‘possibly the most difficult’ decision she’s ever made.

She had been a member of the Conservative Party for 30 years – but has now left to join Nigel Farage’s party, just in time for the Reform UK annual conference.

Ms Dorries stepped down as MP for Mid-Bedfordshire in 2023, after 18 years in the House of Commons.

Explaining her decision, she said: ‘I am still being true to who I am and to the reason I became involved in politics in the first instance: to keep a left-wing Labour government out of No 10 – for all our sakes.

Nadine Dorries is the newest member of Reform UK (Picture: Ken McKay/ITV/Shutterstock)

‘My core beliefs are the same today as they were the day I joined the Conservatives back in 1995. It was the Conservative Party that had changed, not me.

‘Today, to my friends in my former party I would say this: as we teeter on the precipice of terminal economic and social decline, you don’t have the luxury of time to stand stupefied, wondering what went wrong and thinking about how to put it right sometime in the future.

‘Nor do you have time to hope that your party will one day wake up, get its act together and unite to rid us of a Labour government that is driving our country into the ground.

‘For me and others who lived through Labour’s tenure in the 1970s, we know how this story ends.’

Discussing the end of Boris Johnson’s tenure, Ms Dorries said she no longer wanted to work with MPs she considered to be ‘regicidal and self-serving’.

She added: ‘I will always be a true and loyal friend to Boris and I will always defend how he conducted himself as PM.’

Ms Dorries said she had known Nigel Farage for ‘some considerable time’ – and she believes he is ‘the only politician who has the answers, the knowledge and the will to deliver’.

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