Twenty councillors dumped the Kemi Badenoch-led Conservative Party to join Nigel Farage’s Reform Party on Tuesday, following a YouGov poll showing that half of Tory members do not want Mrs Badenoch to lead the party into the next election.

Tuesday’s 20 defections added to the eight Tory councillors who had earlier dumped the party for the Reform Party in March, while some Tory members of parliament had defected to the Labour Party.

Amid the defections that signify the dwindling popularity of the Conservative Party, Mrs Badenoch on Tuesday dismissed the defections as the Tories “shedding some baggage.”

The Tory leader, in an interview with ITV, said the party is “shedding a lot of the baggage of the last 14 years. Just last year, we had MPs jumping to Labour because Labour was doing well in the polls. They’re not doing so well now.

“There are some people who will leave because all they want to do is win elections. They don’t know what they’re winning the elections for,” she added.

Meanwhile, the YouGov poll on Monday showed that 50 per cent of Tory members do not want Mrs Badenoch as leader of their party in the next election, while 46 per cent of members think she should stay.

The same poll also showed that 46 per cent of Tory members prefer Robert Jenrick, whom Mrs Badenoch defeated to become the leader of the party while 39 per cent prefer Mrs Badenoch.