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Former Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi has become the latest senior Conservative to defect to Reform UK, as a Tory source alleged he had sought a nomination for the House of Lords but was rebuffed.
Zahawi, who is a former MP, said he felt the UK had reached a “dark and dangerous” moment, and the country needed “a glorious revolution”, as he outlined why he was joining Nigel Farage’s party.
Zahawi was chancellor for two months under Boris Johnson and served as a minister from 2018 to 2023, making him the most senior former Tory to join Reform so far.
Farage unveiled Zahawi’s defection at a press conference on Monday, one of around 20 former Tory MPs to join the party.
A Conservative party source later alleged that Zahawi had approached Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch seeking a nomination for a place in the House of Lords.
It is claimed Zahawi approached Badenoch on two separate occasions, with the last a few months ago.
The source added Zahawi had approached others close to the Conservative leadership more recently.
They said it was made clear he would not be on the New Year’s Honours list.
A source close to Zahawi said: “Nadhim did not beg for a peerage as they claim – Kemi called him for advice on how to save the party and he decided to join the only party he feels can save Britain.”
Speaking in a pre-recorded video before walking out on stage at the press conference, former minister Zahawi said Britain was “broken”.
He said: “Nothing works, there is no growth, there is crime on our streets, and there is an avalanche of illegal migration that anywhere else in the world would be a national emergency.”
He added: “I’ve made my mind up that the team that will deliver for this nation will be the team that Nigel will put together and that’s why I’ve decided that I’m joining Reform.”
Farage insisted that this latest Tory defection did not mean Reform was becoming the Conservatives 2.0, and said he had fought the party “tooth and nail” over Brexit.
A Conservative spokesman said Reform was “fast becoming the party of has-been politicians looking for their next gravy train”.
“Their latest recruit used to say he’d be ‘frightened to live in a country’ run by Nigel Farage, which shows the level of loyalty for sale,” he said.
“Reform want higher welfare spending and higher taxes. They are a one-man band with no plan for our country.
“Under Kemi Badenoch the Conservatives are demonstrating we have the plan, the competence and the team to get Britain working again.”
When the criticism was put to Zahawi, he replied Badenoch had the “baggage of a defunct brand”.
Farage added there were “plenty” of current Conservative MPs asking about joining Reform and some were not being accepted, but he said Zahawi believed “in what we’re doing” and also has the necessary “conviction”.
As well as his two months as chancellor at the end of Boris Johnson’s time as prime minister, Zahawi was education secretary, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and chairman of the Conservative Party.
He was sacked from that last position by Rishi Sunak in January 2023 after the prime minister’s independent ethics adviser found that he had broken ministerial rules by failing to disclose that his tax affairs were under investigation by HMRC.
Asked by the BBC about being sacked over his tax affairs, Zahawi said: “The mistake I made was not to be specific about my declarations to the Cabinet Office.
“I absolutely think that politicians should be held to a higher level of accountability but I shouldn’t be precluded from doing the right thing by my country.”
The Labour Party chair, MP Anna Turley, said Zahawi was “a discredited and disgraced politician” who had previously “repeatedly lambasted his new boss over his divisive and extreme rhetoric”.
“This shameless scurry of yet another failed Tory over to Reform will tell people everything they need to know about both of them,” she said.
And the Liberal Democrat MP in his old constituency of Stratford-on-Avon, Manuela Perteghella, said: “Reform is becoming a retirement home for disgraced former Conservative ministers.”
Zahawi was a candidate to succeed Johnson as prime minister in 2022 but only attracted the support of 25 of his colleagues and was eliminated in the first round of the leadership contest which Liz Truss won.
He was education secretary from September 2021 to July 2022, and his short stint as chancellor of the exchequer came between July and September 2022.
In November 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, he was appointed vaccines minister and oversaw the rollout of the coronavirus vaccine programme for nearly a year.
Born in Iraq in 1967, he could have been sent to fight in the 1980s Iran-Iraq War but instead he and his parents fled Iraq and he grew up in the UK.
Questioned on whether he had concerns about allegations of racism made against his new party leader by more than 30 school peers, claims denied by Farage, Zahawi responded: “If I thought the man sitting next to me had in any way a problem with people of my colour… I wouldn’t be sitting next to him.”
