Former Tory minister Dame Andrea Jenkyns has joined Reform UK, Nigel Farage has announced.
Ms Jenkyns, who served under the administration of Liz Truss, has been selected to stand as the party’s candidate for the newly created post of Mayor of Greater Lincolnshire.
The announcement was made during a Reform press conference in which Mr Farage revealed that the party’s membership had increased to 100,000 people.
Dame Andrea told the audience she was “joining the party of the brave”, adding that “our once great country is at a crisis point”.
She cited Labour’s decision to transfer sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, the changes to inheritance tax for farmers and the cut to the winter fuel allowance for most pensioners.
“We need those patriotic bravehearts to be a true voice for the people, and Reform is that voice,” she said.
She went on to say that while leaving the Conservative Party was “not an easy decision”, she believed the “ship is sinking, and perhaps sadly, beyond salvage”.
Dame Andrea was elected to parliament in 2015, famously defeating the sitting shadow chancellor Ed Balls to take his seat of Morley and Outwood.
She served as an education minister in the period after Boris Johnson resigned as the leadership contest was under way, and left government after the demise of the Truss government.
She lost her seat at the general election in July – despite famously having a photo of her with Mr Farage on her election leaflets.
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