Sitting Tory MP joins Reform in major coup for Farage

Reform UK has secured its first defection from a sitting Conservative MP as Danny Kruger joined Nigel Farage’s party.

The East Wiltshire MP has joined Reform to head up its preparations for government, becoming the latest in a series of high-profile former ministers to join the party and taking the number of Reform MPs to five.

Mr Kruger said there is a “crisis in the economy, crisis at the border, crisis in our streets and a crisis in our military”.

He said Britain “is not broken, but it is badly damaged” and that “something has got to give”.

Asked about the defection of Kruger, Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said the party “is not going to get blown off course by these sorts of incidents”.

The defection represents a huge crisis for Ms Badenoch’s beleaguered leadership of the party, with Mr Kruger previously seen as hugely influential.

Ironically, Mr Kruger had been working with a fledgling unit which was being set up within the Tories to tackle Reform. He was founder of the New Conservatives and had also run Robert Jenrick’s leadership campaign.

Mr Kruger is unlikely to be the last Tory MP to defect in the coming weeks, with at least one of his former colleagues privately telling The Independent that they may switch too.

This month, Nadine Dorries became the biggest Tory defector to Reform, declaring that the Conservative Party is “dead”. Former MPs, including Dame Andrea Jenkyns and Marco Longhi, and former Tory chair Sir Jake Berry, were among the most high-profile defectors.

Mr Kruger said he hoped the Conservatives would learn lessons from their general election defeat last July, but lashed out at “a year of stasis… and sham unity that comes from not doing anything bold or difficult or controversial”.

Mr Kruger has been outspoken about his views on subjects including assisted death, women’s right to bodily autonomy and the role of marriage in society.

At a 2023 National Conservatism conference, he stated that marriage between men and women was “the only basis for a safe and successful society”.

His mother, Great British Bake Off judge Prue Leith, has spoken about how she is frequently attacked on social media for her son’s views.

Tory Teesside mayor Lord Ben Houchen expressed his disappointment at Mr Kruger’s defection.

He said: “I like Danny. He’s a good man. Principled and clear in his convictions. Sad to see.”

Mr Kruger faced immediate calls to force a by-election after his defection, with a local Conservative association saying “his constituents deserve the opportunity to choose their MP based on the party they stood for at election – not one they’ve opted to switch to mid-term”.

Brian Burchfield, chairman of the Melksham and Devizes Conservative association, said: “As the former representative for the Devizes area, we are deeply disappointed to learn that Danny Kruger MP has chosen to join Reform UK – a privately-run party that appears more focused on private interest than public service, while advocating for increased welfare spending and higher taxes.

“If, as Mr Kruger claims, “the results are in the polls”, then we would urge him to do the right thing: resign his seat and trigger a by-election.”

Mr Kruger indicated that he would not hold a by-election, insisting that he will continue to represent his constituents in the same way despite having switched parties.

Farage criticised after claiming ‘most stable relationships’ are between men and women

Nigel Farage has been accused of “vile homophobia” for claiming straight couples are more stable than gay relationships during a press conference welcoming former Conservative MP Danny Kruger to Reform UK.

The Reform leader said “the most stable relationships tend to be between men and women” after he was asked about past comments made by the right-winger, who became the first sitting Tory MP to join Mr Farage’s party.

Mr Kruger, who was shadow work and pensions minister for Kemi Badenoch’s party, previously told a National Conservatism conference that marriage between men and women was “the only basis for a safe and successful society”.

Questioned on whether he shared Mr Kruger’s view, Mr Farage said: “I think one thing for certain is children who have two stable parents have a better chance in life. And the most stable relationships, maybe not my example, but the most stable relationships, the ones that last the longest, tend to be between men and women.

“I’m not absolutist about this in any way at all. I just happen to think of kids in the country not getting the start at home or at school that they deserve.”

Mr Farage, who has twice been married and is now in a relationship with Laure Ferrari, was accused of “seeking to re-open settled debates on gay marriage and adoption”.

Labour MP Nadia Whittome said: “This is vile homophobia that has no bearing on reality. Make no mistake: Farage is seeking to re-open settled debates on gay marriage and adoption, in order to stir up further hatred and division. The rights of the whole LGBT+ community would be in danger under a Reform government.”

Office for National Statistics figures show there were 103,816 divorces in England and Wales in 2023, with 1,891 divorces of same-sex couples. Some studies, however, have shown a higher risk of divorce for same-sex couples, especially female couples.

The claim by Mr Farage comes after condemnation of his views on abortion laws, which he has described as “totally out of date”.

The Reform leader was criticised after he said it is “ludicrous we allow abortion up to 24 weeks”.

Mr Kruger’s surprise defection on Monday marked the first sitting Tory MP to join Reform’s ranks in the Commons.

The East Wiltshire MP has joined Reform to head up its preparations for government, becoming the latest in a series of high-profile former ministers to join the party and taking the number of Reform MPs to five.

Mr Kruger said there is a “crisis in the economy, crisis at the border, crisis in our streets and a crisis in our military”.

He said Britain “is not broken, but it is badly damaged” and that “something has got to give”.

The Independent has contacted Mr Farage for comment.

How the war in Ukraine has already become a European conflict

The Kremlin issued a sharp warning to Nato when it said the alliance was “fighting against Russia” and was “de facto involved” in the war in Ukraine.

“Nato is providing direct and indirect support to the Kyiv regime,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters. “It can be said with absolute certainty that Nato is fighting against Russia.”

Yet as Russia sends drones into Poland and Romania and organises drills with Belarus, experts say that Putin is testing Nato’s response through its more aggressive movements past Ukrainian borders.

“There is obviously a lot of discussion whether these incursions, especially when it comes to Poland, were deliberate or it was more of a system malfunction, but I do believe that it was a deliberate one,” says Natia Seskuria, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).

“I think Putin is basically testing a Western response by trying to violate Polish airspace, which is a major Nato ally, and he’s trying to find out basically whether there is such thing as Nato unity when it comes to responding to these acts of aggression.”

As the war in Ukraine intensifies, The Independent looks at the ways Russia is expanding the conflict to involve more countries around the world.

Russia has faced global outrage as drone incursions in Nato airspace become more frequent. Moscow drew criticism from the West after the Polish military shot down a large number of Russian drones that had entered its airspace, a move which prompted prime minister Donald Tusk to warn that the country is the closest to armed conflict since the Second World War.

There were 19 intrusions into Polish airspace last Tuesday, with many drones entering from Belarus, Mr Tusk said in parliament, adding that three drones were confirmed to have been shot down, with the fourth being likely.

While Russia has said it didn’t target Poland, and Moscow’s ally Belarus said that the drones went astray because they were jammed, European leaders have said they are certain that the incursions were a deliberate provocation by Putin.

There have been many instances of Russia violating EU and Nato airspace, but this incursion was particularly serious, according to Ms Seskuria.

“It shows basically that Putin is not really interested in any kind of peaceful resolution of the conflict. On the contrary, he’s signalling to the West that unless he gets the best deal in these peace negotiations, which I don’t think he believes he can at the moment, he is willing to go even further ahead and extend the war which may not be confined to Ukrainian borders.”

On Saturday, Romania scrambled fighter jets after a Russian drone entered its airspace. The country’s defence minister, Ionut Mosteanu, said that F-16 pilots came close to taking down the drone as it was flying very low before it left national airspace toward Ukraine.

Russia and Belarus have launched a long-planned joint military exercise, Zapad 2025, which began on Friday and will run until Tuesday this week. The intention is to showcase the close defence ties between Moscow and Minsk.

Defence officials in Belarus originally set aside 13,000 troops to participate in the exercise, which was meant to take place along its western border, although by May the ministry cut the number in half and said the main manoeuvres would take place deeper inside the country.

Although Moscow and Minsk have said the exercises are exclusively defensive and that they do not intend to attack any NATO member, they have drawn worries from Kyiv and western allies in Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, which border Belarus.

Ms Seskuria said Russia’s training exercises with Belarus were deliberate.

“These exercises in the past have been used for Russia to escalate the real conflict. In 2008, for example, against Georgia and then against Ukraine, Russia has used these drills as a preparation for the actual war,” they said.

Russia has also targeted European countries through other methods which have been described as “hybrid warfare”. These range from cyberattacks to sabotage operations and disinformation campaigns.

“This happens all the time,” says Ms Seskuria. “It has much deeper implications on European security and there are various instances where Russia is directly intervening in elections. We saw this happening in Moldova last year, and this year ahead of their parliamentary elections.”

Russia has been accused of meddling in the elections of European nations for years.

The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre judged in 2022 that Russia had been behind a cyber attack with Europe-wide impact just an hour before its invasion of Ukraine. While Ukraine’s military was the primary target of an attack on high-speed broadband service Viasat, wind farms in central Europe and both personal and commercial internet users were also affected.

Disinformation campaigns in Western countries have also been linked to Russia.

“There are consistent efforts to push these narratives that are pro-Russian, portraying the West as an aggressor rather than a Kremlin that wants to violate Ukraine’s sovereignty and fights this war for its own imperial ambitions,” Ms Seskuria said.

Nato’s new red lines could turn Ukraine into a no man’s land

The intrusion of a significant number of Russian drones over Poland last week was already focusing minds in Nato, not least on the thorny question of where it draws its “red lines”, when another such incursion took place at the weekend.

Last Wednesday, 19 Russian drones were found to have crossed over into Polish airspace, some having travelled hundreds of miles inland, before a handful were shot down by local and Nato aircraft. It marked an unsettling escalation of tensions between Russia and Europe, and prompted Poland’s prime minister to declare military conflict on the continent “closer than at any time since the Second World War”.

Only a few days later, on Saturday, another drone violated airspace over Romania, dispelling any lingering doubt that Vladimir Putin was testing Europe’s resolve. Two Romanian F-16s were sent to shadow the military craft for about an hour, but did not shoot it down, leaving it to cross back into Ukraine to wreak havoc there.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said the incursion could not be a mistake and was “an obvious expansion of the war by Russia”. Kaja Kallas, the EU’s foreign policy chief, called the incident “yet another unacceptable breach of an EU member state’s sovereignty”. The UK has since summoned the Russian ambassador to explain his country’s actions.

Russia said its drones went astray because they were jammed. For now, Nato has limited its response to “unreservedly condemning these reckless actions”. So what would it take for a member to invoke Article 5, which provides that an “armed attack against one” Nato member “shall be considered an attack against them all”?

In response to Russia’s drone provocations, “Eastern Sentry” has been launched, involving the deployment of equipment along the Nato border with Belarus, Russia and Ukraine to deter potential Russian aggression.

But how Nato intends to act in future is still far from clear. There is a lot of talk about new red lines to hem in Russian aggression. But everyone knows that lines in the sand tend to blow away – Putin’s especially.

Who can forget how President Obama drew a red line in Syria 13 unlucky years ago? Certainly, the Russian president remembers what happened. The White House threatened “severe” but non-specific consequences if the Assad regime used chemical or biological weapons. When that happened, America and its allies backed away, relying on Russia to defuse the crisis by arranging the shipping of Syria’s WMD stockpiles out of the country, but leaving Assad in power until December last year.

This time, with a direct threat to Nato members like Poland and Romania, the West may be gearing up to back strong words about a red line with action. No more blind eyes to drones or cruise missiles “straying” over borders. Perhaps even pre-emptive shoot-downs of potential threats approaching them via non-Nato states such as Ukraine or Belarus, or, in the case of Romania, across the Black Sea.

A tougher turn after more than three and a half years of caution and non-provocation by Nato will reassure the alliance’s Eastern members. But, perversely, Putin might actually welcome the drawing of a thick red line along Nato’s eastern flank.

Defeating Ukraine remains the Kremlin’s priority. Weakening Ukrainian morale, both among civilians and soldiers, is key to Russia’s chances of achieving its goals – especially the strategic minimum of establishing firm control of Ukraine east of the River Dnieper.

The irony of a beefed-up Nato stance along its border is that it removes any ambiguity about where Ukraine lies: in no man’s land.

Given the reluctance of US president Donald Trump and his secretary of war, Pete Hegseth, to state clearly that the US military would defend every inch of Nato territory, a robust definition of what the alliance will do to defend its members and where it will do that would no doubt reassure the Eastern members.

But that’s why a clear red line on Ukraine’s western border could cause a sense of abandonment inside Ukraine. Rather like the Spanish Republic in the 1930s, Ukraine’s dogged defence against an apparently stronger enemy, backed by foreign powers (then Germany and Italy, now China and Iran), has been buoyed by the hope that its forces’ record of holding so much ground would lead to counterintervention by the Western democracies to decide the battle.

The red line could become for Ukrainians a stab in the back – a sense that the West will subsidise them to fight and die but not to win. Weakening Russia’s military and economy through a proxy war may make sense in Washington. Republicans like Senator Lindsey Graham have boasted about how many Russians have died without the loss of a single GI. But if Ukrainian soldiers sense that the real purpose of the war is not the same as their reasons for fighting in defence of their country, then it could undermine that goal.

A Nato red line that covers western Ukraine – at least creating a safe zone for millions of Ukrainians and industry in the west of the country, and securing the route up the Romanian Black Sea coast to Ukraine’s ports in the southwest – will stiffen Ukrainian morale and deter Russian aggression westward from the current fighting zone. That could deter Putin without provoking a full-scale Russia-Nato war that the advocates of a no-fly zone over the whole of Ukraine seem blithely to risk.

Whatever “red line” is drawn, and wherever it sits on the map, it has to be backed up fully. If Putin can test it and find it wanting, things will be much worse than the bad situation Nato is in on its Eastern front now.

Mark Almond is director of the Crisis Research Institute, Oxford

Amorim’s relegation-level Man United are a nightmare of his own making

Is it, Jason Wilcox may have wondered, how a director of football’s time should finish? With applause from around the ground and a picture of him on the big screen, surrounded by the multitude of trophies won in his tenure? But the man being lauded was Txiki Begiristain, who returned to Manchester City for a hug from his old ally Pep Guardiola and a tribute from his former club.

Perhaps, in his retirement in the Basque Country, Begiristain should expect a call from Sir Jim Ratcliffe, given the Manchester United co-owner’s fondness for hiring people with City on their CV. Ruben Amorim was an appointment with a difference, perhaps chosen in part because of a suspicion he might be lined up to succeed Guardiola at the Etihad Stadium. Instead, he came off second best to the Catalan in City’s 3-0 win. The eventual verdict on the season may still be that Guardiola’s best days are in the past, but this was another awful afternoon for Amorim. The idea that he is the next great manager has taken a battering in the last 10 months.

“The record says everything, I understand,” admitted Amorim. Because the issue is not merely one derby defeat, or even the familiarity of some of the flaws it contained. It is Amorim’s return over the course of his reign. United finished 15th last season. They are 14th now. But construct a table of the 17 clubs that have been the constants in his tenure and United are 17th and bottom, with 31 points from 31 games. “It is not a record you should have in Manchester United,” said Amorim. Take his results over a season and they could be called relegation form. As it is, United have made their worst start to a league campaign since 1992-93. They won the league then. They might not finish in the top half now.

Even those with a rudimentary grasp of maths can realise that 31 points from 31 matches works out as exactly one point per game. Which, in a different way, he could have accomplished if he had never won a game but drawn all 31; would he have been better off with that ridiculous form of invincibility? Instead, he has a side who are all too beatable. United have lost twice as many league matches as they have won under Amorim.

There are problems that predate Amorim; issues that are not his fault and things that, rather than solving, Ratcliffe and co have compounded with their own shortcomings. There is always more than is apparent in public. “There are a lot of things. You have no idea what happened during these months, but I accept that,” added Amorim.

And yet his response to his wretched return remains the same: to carry on with his stubborn adherence to a formation that does not work. The genius of Amorim’s 3-4-3 system is that United always have too few players where they need them. In particular, they are outnumbered in the middle of the pitch. “City make a midfield four against a two,” noted Bruno Fernandes, one of the duo, arguing United need others to come into that area of the pitch. But too often, it is too open in midfield. Meanwhile, they can have five defenders but none of them are capable of stopping Erling Haaland. Even with those five hauling back, no one tracks runners from midfield, a factor in Phil Foden’s opener.

So Amorim, almost inevitably, insisted: “I am not going to change. When I want to change my philosophy, I will change. If not, you have to change the man.”

Changing the man has a certain logic. There were reasons to do it at the end of last season, instead of giving Amorim around £230m to spend and allowing him to exile those, such as Marcus Rashford and Alejandro Garnacho, whom he does not want. Ratcliffe has changed many a man at Old Trafford but has so far been firmly behind Amorim.

He won’t be the first Ruben to be sacked by a northern club with the suffix United this season; Ruben Selles at Sheffield United claimed that particular honour. Nor, indeed, will he be the first manager United hired since Sir Alex Ferguson retired to be given his marching orders this season: three others – Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, Jose Mourinho and Erik ten Hag – were sacked in the space of a week.

Each had a better record with United than Amorim. Maybe he had a worse inheritance with United because of his predecessors. But after a preseason and a summer spending spree, this is his team now. City were stronger, more powerful, more ruthless.

City won the moments and the match. “We have to look at what we did well and it’s not enough,” added Fernandes. “We need to score goals and not concede.” Which, in itself, was damning. United score too few – only two from their own players this Premier League season and one of those was a penalty – and concede too many. Only West Ham, Nottingham Forest and Wolves have let in more this season. And if United’s goalkeeping troubles are a reason for that, Amorim’s answer was to sign Senne Lammens and then put him on the bench. It gave him a glimpse of what he is walking into.

“I am trying to be rational and I don’t lie to myself,” said Amorim. But the league table rarely lies and, over that 31-game table, no one is beneath Manchester United.

I wish my mum had contacted Macmillan Cancer Support

I wasn’t at my mum’s side when she learned she had breast cancer, but that made me determined to be there the day she was getting the all-clear 18-months later. However, things didn’t go to plan that day.

Mum’s cancer journey started over a decade ago, a few months after a routine mammogram – when she developed “a pain”. She told herself it was probably nothing, because the scan she’d just had was fine. When she mentioned it to her GP – a small lump that didn’t feel quite right – she convinced herself that she was just being silly. The biopsy begged to differ.

In the list you keep in your head of the cancers you worry your mum might get, breast wasn’t that high on mine. Yes, it’s long been the number one cancer affecting women, with Macmillan Cancer Support reporting that about 55,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer in the UK each year  – the risk factor only increasing with age. But my mum had other health concerns to contend with.

As a schoolgirl in swinging London, she’d been a back-of-the-bikeshed smoker, which had graduated into a lifelong habit. Lung cancer seemed like a possibility.

Mum’s also the biggest sun worshipper I know. Long before any of us had heard of SPF, she would think nothing of spending an afternoon in the garden, stretched out on a blanket, slathered in baby oil. So, given what we know now about UV radiation, I wondered about skin cancer too.

Mum went on to have a series of lumpectomies to get rid of three spots of malignant tissue. She would also have lymph nodes removed as a precaution, as well as undergo extensive chemotherapy.

For me, her diagnosis was as though a stopwatch had been started. How long might she have left? She did her best to be stoic. Which was just as well, given what government austerity measures at the time were doing to the NHS: budget cuts, hapless reorganisations, and an end to the “gold-standard” two-week referral from detection to the start of treatment.

All mum could do was wait for the brown envelopes to drop on the doormat detailing appointments at unfamiliar hospitals many miles away, sometimes after the appointment had been and gone.

If she felt let down by the bureaucracy of our health service, the same could not be said for the army of individuals involved in her care. On a human level, she found her nurses and doctors to be uniquely composed and compassionate throughout her treatment.

When the day finally came for her oncologist to tell her that all the signs of her cancer had gone, I was invited along to hold her hand. “The scans are back,” he began. “And I need to discuss your options for the next course of action.” It seemed the cancer hadn’t quite gone after all. She had fought so hard to get to this point, she was expecting good news, and was unprepared for the knockback.

But she did go on to beat cancer – and has been in remission for more than five years, which we couldn’t be more grateful for. However, should it ever come back, there’s one thing we’d do differently from the off: make a call to Macmillan Cancer Support.

Only with hindsight, did we realise how much help Macmillan would have been. Someone to provide her with a calming companion for the journey, someone to help with the cancer admin – the appointments, the prescriptions, the test results – and someone to explain what all the scans and tests were for, what the results might mean, and what to expect next.

I couldn’t always be around while mum was living with cancer, and that’s where Macmillan steps in. Now, enjoying a slice of cake at a Coffee Morning, which is raising money to fund the work they do, seems like the least I can do.

Find out how you can help raise vital funds by hosting a Macmillan Coffee Morning. Sign up now on the Macmillan website

Macmillan Cancer Support, registered charity in England and Wales (261017), Scotland (SC039907) and the Isle of Man (604). Also operating in Northern Ireland.

The curse of being the world’s most beautiful village

Bibury has been named on a list of the “world’s 50 most beautiful villages”, but locals say its popularity has led to an unmanageable influx of tourists.

The small Cotswolds village is famous for its row of 17th-century weavers’ cottages and charming water meadow.

Once described by William Morris as “the most beautiful village in England”, it often welcomes visitors looking to snap pictures of its attractive surroundings.

Now, Bibury has had its title upgraded, as Forbes magazine unveiled a list of the most beautiful villages in the world – with Bibury right at the top.

The village’s golden-hued cottages and tranquil River Coln were cited as reasons for its victory.

However, Craig Chapman, chair of Bibury Parish Council, said that the achievement is a “double-edged sword” as the amount of tourism the village attracts was “problematic” and comes “at a cost for locals”.

He told BBC Radio Gloucestershire: “I’m fairly flabbergasted, having travelled the world, to believe we’re the most attractive village in the world.

“It’s a great honour, but it’s a little bit of a surprise; there’s a lot of competition out there.”

Other villages on the list include Oia on the Greek island of Santorini and Hallstatt in Austria. Both also struggle with overtourism as a result of their popularity.

Bibury only has a population of around 600-700 people, but sees up to 20,000 visitors on weekends and has run into issues involving coach traffic, queues of visitors and tourists climbing over private walls to snap pictures.

“It’s completely a double-edged sword,” Mr Chapman told the BBC.

“The issue is very much about the mechanisms whereby people come to the village and when they come here, how they behave, where they park.

“The reality is we sit on a B-road. The road is narrow, there’s one bridge across the River Coln, which is only wide enough for one vehicle.

“We’ve suffered greatly from congestion, particularly from the larger coaches.”

Locals have complained about emergency services struggling to move through traffic and illegally parked tourists.

One resident claimed a Range Rover drove over his foot during a parking dispute.

Last month, a county council leader asked tourists to use smaller vehicles when visiting the village, with restrictions on coach access also introduced in May.

Mr Chapman said there needs to be “harmony” between tourists and local visitors, and said the restrictions were helping.

The Independent has contacted Bibury Parish Council for further comment.

For more travel news and advice, listen to Simon Calder’s podcast

JD Vance to host ‘The Charlie Kirk Show’ in tribute to victim of assassination

Vice President JD Vance will host an episode of Charlie Kirk’s podcast on Monday afternoon to pay tribute to his close friend.

At 12 p.m. ET, Vance will be the face of The Charlie Kirk Show’s latest episode – to be aired on Rumble.

It is the latest tribute from Republicans to the conservative activist and founder of Turning Point USA, who was fatally shot on Wednesday afternoon while hosting an event at Utah Valley University.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson is also expected to hold a vigil on Monday evening for members of Congress to attend in memory of Kirk. Last week, Johnson tried to take a moment of silence for Kirk on the House floor, but it quickly descended into a shouting match between Democrats and Republicans.

Officials in Washington, D.C., held a more formal vigil for Kirk on Sunday evening to remember the 31-year-old Republican activist. Kirk was close with many members of the administration, including President Donald Trump.

The memorials for Kirk arrive as law enforcement authorities are preparing to bring formal charges against Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old man accused of fatally shooting Kirk at the college event.