The sight of the discredited dregs of the Tory Party defecting to Reform looks much like rats fleeing a sinking ship.
But it could be argued that the Conservative Party will be better off without the likes of the malign Suella Braverman and Robert Jenrick. Cleansing the toxic legacy of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss will give the chance for more traditional, less extreme Tories to emerge and return the party to some degree of credibility.
Two failed former Tory ministers will only bring more potential infighting and discord to Reform.
Already the Reform candidate for the Gorton and Denton by-election is claiming that UK-born people from minority ethnic backgrounds are not always British. Is this a direct attack on Suella Braverman, whose parents immigrated from Kenya?
Braverman already had a turbulent and very controversial career as an MP and minister. She was sacked twice as a government minister by two different prime ministers!
It is understandable that Braverman and Jenrick, fearful of losing their lucrative parliamentary seats, should desperately jump ship, but with their records – who would want them?
Braverman’s sacking from government came in both cases because she was a law unto herself, described by another MP as “highly Irresponsible”.
Reform should be renamed Recycle, willing to take on damaged goods as candidates, irrespective of reputation or lack of ability. But then its ideas and policies are also not original, taken from the discredited playbook of Donald Trump, consistently rated as one of the worst United States presidents in history!
