Reform is turning into a recycling centre for toxic Tories

Never mind the quality, feel the width. This is the rule when it comes to defectors from the Tories to Reform. An earlyish convert from blue to turquoise was Nadine Dorries, who authored a hilariously crackers book contending that Boris Johnson was brought down not by Partygate and the myriad other scandals of his reign, but by a clandestine cabal known as “The Movement” machinating at the behest of a shadowy character she refers to only as “Dr No”.

From the ridiculous to the slime, a more recent recruit is Nadhim Zahawi who was chancellor for about five minutes before being sacked for neglecting to declare that he was the subject of an HMRC investigation and carelessly forgetting to pay millions of pounds owed to the taxman. The latest “top Tories” to sashay down the Reform catwalk are Robert Jenrick, who was not nicknamed “Honest Bob” because colleagues thought they could trust him, and Suella Braverman, also known as “Cruella” and “Leaky Sue”. She at least has a future in pub quizzes when the question-setter asks for the name of the only person to have been fired as home secretary on two separate occasions by two different Tory PMs.

Enough already? Apparently not. Mr Farage has yet to sate his appetite for the risible and the rebarbative from the years of Conservative misrule. He’s hinted that there are further berths available at the Reform refuge for fallen Tories. Anyone else interested in doing the rat run has until 7 May to make the leap. The deadline may be a bluff, but you can never be sure. So Liz Truss, whose admission to the ranks of Reform has never been completely ruled out by its leader, needs to get her skates on.

Reform now has eight MPs, half of whom were elected as Conservatives. Much more of this and we may start to wonder who is taking over whom. Mr Farage is gambling that he gains more from the impression of momentum supplied by defectors than he loses from the damage they do to his claim to represent a clean break with the “establishment” parties.

His rivals think he is making a mistake in allowing his party to turn into a recycling centre for Tory waste products. Labour sniffs an opportunity. It has never had much difficulty mounting a moral case against Reform, but it has been harder to attack the party’s record, given that it doesn’t have one when it comes to governing at Westminster. The size of that handicap diminishes at least a bit every time Mr Farage welcomes another former Conservative to his motley crew. This allows Labour to push the line that Reform is becoming a repository for the least appealing and most extreme elements of the Tory party that were hurled out of office at the last general election.

There’ll be an early road test of this messaging in the Gorton and Denton byelection. Labour people have not abandoned hope of winning that contest, despite all the friction generated by Andy Burnham’s vetoed attempt to be the Labour candidate. “We have a more resilient brand up here,” says one senior Labour MP from Greater Manchester. “If you look at the constituency, we have every councillor bar one.” One early challenge will be to fend off competition from the Greens. Zack Polanski, their leader, is not an MP. He is a Mancunian. It is rather strange that he did not offer himself as the Green candidate if he genuinely believes his party has a serious chance of winning this seat. Labour will strive to mobilise anti-Reform voters behind its banner by warning left-leaning voters tempted to go Green that they risk handing victory to Mr Farage.

Labour people are encouraged by Reform’s choice of candidate, Matthew Goodwin, whose politics are sufficiently noxious to have received the endorsement of the far-right agitator, Tommy Robinson. Mr Goodwin’s ugly ethno-nationalism includes the claim that citizens from immigrant backgrounds are not necessarily British even if they possess a UK passport or UK birth certificate. “It takes more than a piece of paper to make somebody British,” he has said. Let us see if he is willing to repeat that on the doorstep in a constituency where more than four in 10 residents identify as being from a minority ethnic background.

The Tories were always doomed to be no-hopers at the byelection. In the broader battle, Kemi Badenoch may yet seek some advantage from the defections to Reform. She was quite effective at ridiculing the rat-runners in a recent speech, scoffing that it was “a tantrum dressed up as politics” and offering mock sympathy with the switchers: “I’m sorry you (Jenrick) didn’t win the leadership contest. I’m sorry you (Braverman) didn’t get a job in the shadow cabinet. I’m sorry you (Zahawi) didn’t get into the Lords.”

These departures create space for Mrs Badenoch to broaden her party’s appeal and rebuild the Conservatives around their traditional, often highly successful, calling cards with the electorate. As I first reported back at the time of their party conference, all is not necessarily lost for the Tories. They have an advantage over both Labour and Reform when voters are asked which party they prefer on taxes, the national debt, investment and job creation. Some of the shrewder party donors in the business world are sticking with the blues because they think the party’s long-term prospects are brighter than they appear at the moment.

There’s a gap in the market for a centre-right party that appeals to voters who think Labour is overtaxing them while also believing that Reform can’t be trusted with the economy. It is this gap that is addressed by Prosper UK, the new grouping launched by Sir Andy Street, who was a popular two-term Tory mayor of the West Midlands, and Baroness Ruth Davidson, a rare example of a Tory leader in Scotland with a claim to some success north of the border. The organisation’s cast list of sane, moderate Tories also includes Baron Gavin Barwell, David Gauke and Amber Rudd. Their prospectus highlights fiscal responsibility, encouraging enterprise and free trade: quintessential Tory themes with a past record of appealing to many Britons. Yet rather than welcome their contribution, Mrs Badenoch foolishly chose to blow a raspberry at them. She snapped that centrist Tories are “not being helpful” and “need to get out of the way”. The popping sound you can hear is the champagne corks flying at Lib Dem campaign HQ.

Photograph by Leon Neal/Getty Images