Tory defectors to Reform UK lacked mettle, Kemi Badenoch has suggested, as she said her party needs backers who are not going to “jump into whatever lifeboat they think is passing by”.
The Conservative leader said she was “sorry to lose” supporters as she embarks on a “long, difficult journey” in Opposition.
But one of 20 councillors who walked away from Mrs Badenoch’s party on Tuesday said he took a “personal risk” by joining Reform UK, “going against the grain” in an area where the Conservatives picked up more than half of the vote share.
Robbie Lammas, a councillor in Medway’s Princes Park ward, warned the Conservatives’ top team had been too tentative for too long, which he said “made them look like they didn’t know what they wanted”.
Reform UK added a score of councillors to its tally on the eve of the Conservative Party conference finale, where Mrs Badenoch will make a closing speech.
Earlier this year, Nigel Farage’s party secured 677 seats at the local elections in May and took over several authorities including in Derbyshire, Kent, Lincolnshire and Staffordshire.
East Wiltshire MP Danny Kruger left the Conservatives last month to join Reform.
Mrs Badenoch told ITV News: “People who jump around because they’re jumping around polls are not people who can deal with tough times.
“If they cannot deal with tough times in opposition, how are they going to deal with tough times in government?
“We need people who can see through difficult times, not jump into whatever lifeboat they think is passing by.
“We’re going to get to the destination. It’s going to be a long, difficult journey.”
Mrs Badenoch also said she was “sorry to lose people on on the way” and continued: “But we’re going to where we need to get to and we need to hold our nerve.”
The North West Essex MP described the defections as “a stunt that Reform has pulled”, as she spoke to the BBC.
“It is not a coincidence that this has all been announced this morning,” she said.
But Mr Lammas said he had been considering the move since the beginning of this year.
He told the PA news agency: “I think the breadth of the church is too broad to function effectively to pass the legislation to meet the challenges of today.”
Mr Lammas said the “liberal part of the Conservative Party will never accept things like” Mrs Badenoch’s pledge to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), while over the last decade, the “Spartans were never going to accept anything but proper Brexit – and you can argue if that even happened or not”.
He continued: “I’ve thought to myself: ‘I can see this kind-of splitting, I don’t think these camps will exist quite happily in this thing if these issues persist’, and that’s something that I’ve been observing for a long, long time.”
The councillor also said: “Kent is a typically Tory area, so actually, there’s a lot of personal risk for me going against the grain, especially as we haven’t got local elections for two years.”
He said that with “friendships, relationships, it’s a lot to potentially fracture”, adding that it would be “easier to stay”.
Mr Lammas warned that Mrs Badenoch’s administration has “waited all this time and then they’ve pulled the report out of the hat, and it’s basically confirmed that Reform’s policy position on the ECHR was correct”, after deciding “to hold back” to develop unique policies.
Mr Lammas was joined in defecting by Mark Whittington (South Kesteven), Brett Rosehill and Caroline Clapper (Hertsmere), Duane Farr and Cameron Adams (Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole), Denise Howard (East Riding of Yorkshire), Debbie Soloman (Rushcliffe), Emma Elliott, Aaron Elliott, Gary Harding and David Beattie (Gravesham), Barry Dunning (Hampshire), Paul Miller (Basingstoke and Deane), Jack Rydeheard (Bury), Mathew Forshaw (South Ribble), Karl Arthur (North Yorkshire), Richard Craddock (Cannock Chase), Heike Sowa (Suffolk) and Christopher Marlow (Bromley).
Mrs Badenoch had earlier told LBC Radio that the Conservative Party conference in Manchester was a chance to show “the direction of travel: a stronger economy, stronger borders”.
Asked why her party was losing supporters, Mrs Badenoch replied: “What we are doing is shedding a lot of the baggage of the last 14 years.”
Mr Rosehill, the Aldenham East ward councillor in Hertsmere, Hertfordshire, told the PA news agency: “I don’t think it’s ‘shedding baggage’.
“I think there’s a strong, growing movement of people who care about British values and safety.”
The ward councillor for Aldenham East in Hertsmere, Hertfordshire, said he felt neither the Conservatives nor Labour were in a position to promote that movement, adding he was “not interested in mud-slinging”.
