TWENTY Tory councillors greeted the third day of their party conference in Manchester today by jumping ship to Reform.

Their departure was hailed by Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch as “shedding a lot of the baggage of the last 14 years.”

But Ms Badenoch’s bravado cannot conceal an accumulating crisis for the Conservatives as their local government base, already depleted by electoral defeats, further erodes to Reform’s advantage.

More than a dozen one-time Tory MPs have signed up with Nigel Farage, although only one presently in the Commons — Danny Kruger — has done so.

The latest crop of defections come from all over the country, from Hampshire to Lancashire. Their new boss, Reform leader-owner Nigel Farage was jubilant, declaring that “the Conservative Party is finished.”

Ms Badenoch continues to rule out any form of a pact with Mr Farage, claiming that the latter wants to raise public spending and even “nationalise.”

This reluctance to unite the right is one factor impelling talk of an early replacement of the flatlining Tory leader with someone more open to deals with Reform, presently polling almost twice as much as the Conservatives.

The Tory conference overall has a funereal feel in contrast to Reform’s present bounce. Elderly activists gather in quarter-full halls to listen to jokes fall flat from shadow cabinet members suffused with an air of transience.

The party has not even booked the main space at the Manchester Central conference centre, but is gathered instead in a side room which even then is spectacularly empty.  

Fringe meetings are often listless and few pretend that the party is preparing for government.