MEP Lance Forman and three of his former Brexit Party colleagues have announced they have joined the Conservative Party.

Lucy Harris, John Longworth, Annunziata Rees-Mogg, the sister of House of Commons leader Jacob Rees-Mogg, and Mr Forman had previously left the Brexit Party during the general election.

At the time, they urged people to vote Conservative, calling the Brexit Party strategy “misguided”.

On Wednesday, they announced they would now sit as Conservative MEPs in the European Parliament, raising the number of seats Conservatives have there to seven.

However, after Brexit all UK MEPs will cease to be members of the European Parliament.

Mr Forman is the owner of the H Forman and Son salmon smokehouse in London, which had a swastika daubed on it last summer after Mr Forman was elected.