New Reform recruits blast opponents on crime record

NIGEL Farage unveiled two new major Reform UK recruits yesterday, securing yet another high-profile defection from the Conservatives.

- By Christian Calgie

Rupert Matthews, the serving police and crime commissioner for Leicestershire, announced he was jumping ship, delivering a damning broadside of the Tories' recent time in office and of Kemi Badenoch's leadership of the party he had been a member of for 40 years.

Mr Matthews, who has also served as an MEP, claimed the Conservative Party is no longer putting Britain and the British people first, and accused Ms Badenoch of "cowardly capitulation to establishment orthodoxies".

Cowardly