Dame Penny Mordaunt vowed she will never defect to Reform UK even though Nigel Farage once described her as a “Roman goddess”. The former Commons leader insisted she is a Conservative through and through and will not be joining ex-colleagues who have already jumped ship to the Right-wing party.
She made the defiant promise during an appearance on our weekday news show, the Daily Expresso. Ms Mordaunt lost her seat at last year’s General Election but is planning a return as a Conservative “foot soldier” to fight Reform. She also hopes to return to the Commons one day.
Daily Expresso host JJ Anisiobi with Penny Mordaunt (Image: Adam Gerrard / Daily Express)
Speaking about her political allegiance, the former MP for Portsmouth North said she will always be a Tory.
“I’m a Conservative,” she said proudly.
Her party is currently languishing in third place in the polls on 17%, some distance behind Reform on 31% with Labour on 20%.
Meanwhile, a number of Tories – including Danny Kruger – have swapped blue for teal by joining Mr Farage’s party.
But Dame Penny said she will not be one of them, despite Mr Farage’s colourful description of her following her starring role at the King’s Coronation in 2023, in which she held a ceremonial sword for more than an hour.
“Nigel Farage did once compare me to a Roman goddess. Good luck to them. But they are not Conservatives,” she said.
“We know that they’re taking political support from all sorts of areas. Some of the candidates they fielded in Scotland at the last election were pro-independence.
“I’m a Unionist. I fought very hard to make sure that we were going to hold the UK together. Why would I go and support a party that didn’t have that same view?”
Ms Mordaunt, a former defence secretary, also took aim at Reform’s economic policies.
“If we’re going to do the things that the country needs us to do, we also have to control public spending.
“I don’t see Reform doing that. So they’re not for me, I’m a Conservative and in the future I’d like the state to be smaller, not bigger like you would get under Reform.”
Ms Mordaunt also spoke about her new book, Pomp and Circumstance: Why Britain’s Traditions Matter.
Nigel Farage lavished praise on Penny Mordaunt (Image: Getty)
She said the UK’s uniqueness and resilience can be its “superpower” in a very challenging world.
But she warned that Sir Keir Starmer is not the right person to lead the country because “he doesn’t know what he stands for”.
“He doesn’t have a sense of the country or what he wants to do or what the country needs,” she said.
“The country is now rudderless, it’s got no sense of what it’s trying to achieve or why.
“I think the overwhelming feeling is that the leader of this great country doesn’t know what he wants to do, and this is at a time when we really do need politics to be transformational.
“If you had that leadership, the nation would absolutely rally. It’s just a massive wasted opportunity.”
Ms Mordaunt contrasted the “incredibly stoic and brave” British public with the “disappointment” of a government inside No 10.
“That makes me very sad,” she said, adding that people are tying flags to lamp posts because they care about their country.
Pomp and Circumstance: Why Britain’s Traditions Matter is available to buy from Biteback Publishing and Amazon.
