Reform UK has suspended prominent former Conservative Tim Montgomerie after he criticised senior party figures, including Nigel Farage, in media interviews.

Montgomerie, who defected to Reform 18 months ago after a long career as a Tory adviser and commentator, has said he plans to appeal against the suspension.

On Friday, Montgomerie told the BBC he was frustrated at Farage’s “aggrieved” tone after the Clacton by-election – and on Monday he told The Spectator podcast, external that Reform’s home affairs spokesman Zia Yusuf was not a “team player”.

Reform said he had been suspended “in line with party rules” after public criticism of the party.

It is understood Montgomerie was notified of his suspension before the Spectator podcast was broadcast.

In the podcast, he praised Farage’s media skills but said he had not dealt well with questions over his personal finances and needed to be better prepared.

“It is clearly his Achilles heel, when he is facing hostile questioning he doesn’t perform well,” said Montgomerie, adding that he had privately told Farage that he needed to do more to make Reform a “credible party”.

Montgomerie has been openly critical of Yusuf on social media recently, and in the Spectator interview he said the home affairs spokesman was “loyal to Nigel as he has to be if he wants to succeed him” but did not act as a “team player”.

He said Yusuf “did not talk to me” for three months after he helped Tory MP Robert Jenrick defect to Reform, and accused him of behaving “like a child”.

In a video statement on X, external after news of his suspension emerged on the Guido Fawkes website, Montgomerie said he still believed in the party’s policies and its membership, and he was only trying to make the party “better and stronger” with his public criticisms.

“If they want to kick me out, they are going to have to kick me out after an argument,” he added.

He said Farage did not know about the decision to suspend him, and he had warned the Reform leader when he joined the party that he would be critical at times, as he had been of the Tory leadership when he ran the ConservativeHome website.

Farage had said “there wasn’t enough internal debate inside Reform and he absolutely welcomed me in on that basis,” he added.