Kemi Badenoch has acknowledged her party is enduring a “rough and bumpy time” following the defections of MP Danny Kruger and former minister Maria Caulfield to Reform UK.
The Conservative leader told GB News that “every leader regrets losing people to another party”, and suggested there could be more defections if Reform maintains its polling lead.
She said: “There will be some people who will go to another party because of poll ratings. I have to make sure that I’m very focused on the strategy.”
She adding that others could leave “because they don’t like the new policies”, such as her emphasis on “no more lavish spending” and cutting welfare, and agreed that her party faced a difficult period.
She said: “When a party has just had a historic defeat, we will have a very tough and bumpy time before we come back up again.”
She added: “There may be some people who are impatient. I’m sorry if they’re not willing to wait, and they just want to rush to whatever is looking good right now, but what I’m doing is going to work in the long term.”
East Wiltshire MP Mr Kruger, who had sat on Mrs Badenoch’s front bench as a shadow welfare minister, defected to Reform on Monday, declaring the Conservative Party was “over” and urging his colleagues to join him.
On Tuesday, shadow chancellor Sir Mel Stride said Mr Kruger was “profoundly wrong” in his analysis of the Conservative Party’s future.
The first sitting Conservative MP to defect to the party, Mr Kruger was joined on Tuesday by former Lewes MP Maria Caulfield, who lost her seat at last year’s general election.
She told GB News: “If you are conservative right-minded, then the future is Reform. The country is going to change a lot.”
Ms Caulfield returned to her previous job as a nurse after leaving Parliament and switched her allegiance a month ago, according to the broadcaster.
Although less damaging to Mrs Badenoch than the defection of sitting MP Mr Kruger, the revelation adds to the building sense of exodus from the traditional party of the centre right.
