By Kate Whannel
Political reporter, BBC News
The North West Leicestershire MP Andrew Bridgen has joined Reclaim, a party set up by actor Laurence Fox, following his expulsion from the Conservatives.
Mr Bridgen was kicked out of the party last month after comparing Covid vaccines to the “biggest crime against humanity since the Holocaust”.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called his comments “utterly unacceptable”.
Announcing his decision to join Reclaim, Mr Bridgen said he had been “a prisoner” in the Conservatives.
“Now I have reclaimed my freedom,” he told a press conference.
He also predicted he would not be the first MP to switch to Reclaim, saying: “This is just the beginning.”
Mr Bridgen’s decision to join Reclaim gives the party, which was established in 2020, its first MP.
Asked if he would now call a by-election, Mr Bridgen said there would be a general election next year and that he didn’t want to put his constituents through “the rigour of having two elections in 12 months”.
During the pandemic, Mr Bridgen was critical of the lockdown policy and vaccines passports, but praised the development of the Covid vaccine and tweeted that he had received his doses.
However, he has since become increasingly critical of vaccines making baseless claims including that vaccines were killing many people and that the damage was being covered up.
At first, he began highlighting real, but rare, cases of vaccine injury and misinterpreting real data to suggest these cases were more common than the research suggests.
His rhetoric increased and in January, posting a link to an article on vaccines he said: “As one consultant cardiologist said to me, this is the biggest crime against humanity since the Holocaust.”
Extensive independent research shows that Covid vaccines are extremely effective at preventing deaths.
Introducing his new MP at a press conference in Parliament, Mr Fox described Mr Bridgen as a “decent father and successful businessman” who had been “cancelled and reviled”.
“British people have a right to hear what Andrew Bridgen has to say and the Reclaim Party will make sure he is heard.”
