Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has ruled out any merger with Tory leader Kemi Badenoch following the defection of several top Tories.
Former Tory deputy chairman Jonathan Gullis this week defected to Reform, saying that his old party has “lost touch” with voters.
Lia Nici, who served as Grimsby MP until last year, and former Bolton West Tory MP Chris Green, have also joined “on their own accord online”.
There are 13 senior Conservatives who could be on the list of people jumping ship from the Tories to join Reform.
The latest round of defections are the first since Danny Kruger, the sitting MP for East Wiltshire, left the Tories to join Reform in September.
In a post on his Facebook page, Mr Gullis, the Conservative MP for Stoke-on-Trent North between 2010 and 2024, said he had not taken the decision to defect “lightly”.
He said: “Over time, I have watched a party I once believed in lose touch with the people it was meant to serve.
“From failing to control both legal and illegal migration to pursuing a Net Zero agenda that has seen a rise in our household energy bills and put jobs in Stoke-on-Trent’s world-famous ceramics sector at risk, the Conservative Party has understandably lost the trust of the British people.
“As a country, we face serious and deep-rooted challenges, and what is required now are bold, radical ideas alongside the determination to deliver them.”
A Reform source said: “The Conservative Party is dead. Only Reform can beat Labour at the next election as the polls show time and time again.”
