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Former Conservative chancellor Nadhim Zahawi has become the latest – and most senior – Tory to defect to Reform UK.
The ex-MP and vaccines minister during the COVID pandemic said the UK was “drinking at the last chance saloon” and “really does need Nigel Farage as prime minister”.
Having served under the four latest Conservative prime ministers, including as chancellor for two months under Boris Johnson, he is the most senior former Tory MP to join Reform.
He is also the 20th ex-Conservative MP to defect since March 2024.
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Announcing his move at a news conference on Monday, alongside Reform leader Mr Farage, the Iraqi refugee said he switched because the Conservative Party is a “defunct brand” that could no longer form the next government.
A Conservative source told Sky News that Mr Zahawi, who stood down as an MP in 2024, had asked the Tories for a peerage several times, including in the last few months ahead of the most recent political peerages list.
However, he was told this was “never going to happen” as he was sacked as Tory party chairman by then-prime minister Rishi Sunak in 2023 for failing to declare he was being investigated by HMRC over his tax affairs.
Mr Zahawi told Sky News that was “not true” and he has a message “from the top” about wanting to give him a peerage and that Tory leader Kemi Badenoch and her team would contact him in 2026.
He said Ms Badenoch and her team “came for help and advice” and asked him to meet her husband, Hamish Badenoch, twice because he said he is “taking charge at CCHQ (Conservative Campaign Headquarters)”.
The businessman insisted he had been given “no promises at all” about what role he would have in Reform – but did not rule out becoming a Reform MP or peer.
Read more:
Who is Nadhim Zahawi? Former child refugee to top Tory to Reform defector
The former Tory MPs who have defected to Reform
Mr Farage said Mr Zahawi’s move helped to dispel suggestions that Reform UK is a “one-man band”.
Asked about the HMRC investigation, which ended with Mr Zahawi paying a nearly £5m penalty, Mr Farage said: “There’s nobody with a complex business empire that does not have to have negotiations at some point with HMRC.
“That is how the world works, and I’d much rather have Nadhim who has been through that experience and come out the other end.
“He could have just gone abroad. He could have just disappeared for a few years, not paid any tax, which by the way, increasingly is what people are doing.”
Anti-Farage tweets
Mr Zahawi’s defection may come as a surprise to some, given his previous comments about Reform and Mr Farage.
He previously ruled out joining Reform, saying: “No chance. Been a Conservative all my life and will die a Conservative.”
The businessman, in a tweet deleted on Monday, also called comments by Mr Farage in 2015 “offensive and racist” and said he would be “frightened” to live in a country run by him after the then-UKIP leader said it was “ludicrous” that employers could not choose British workers over Polish ones.
In 2022, Mr Farage said Mr Zahawi’s promotion to chancellor showed “all he’s interested in is climbing that greasy pole”.
Mr Zahawi denied his move was about his career or that he thought Mr Farage was racist.
“If I thought this man sitting next to me in any way had an issue with people of my colour or my background who have come to this country, who have integrated, assimilated, are proud of this country, worked hard in this country, paid millions of pounds in taxes in this country, invested in the country, I wouldn’t be sitting next to him,” he said, with Mr Farage beside him.
Mr Zahawi dodged questions about his former criticisms of Reform and Mr Farage. Pic: Reuters
Anti-vaccine questions
The former COVID vaccines minister also batted away questions about Aseem Malhotra, an adviser to US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, who linked COVID vaccines to cancer in the Royal Family during Reform’s conference last year.
Mr Farage brushed it off as providing a platform for free speech.
Mr Malhotra’s claims were condemned by leading viral immunologist Professor Brian Ferguson, from Cambridge University, who said: “There is no credible evidence that these vaccines disrupt tumour suppressors or drive any kind of process that results in cancer.”
The Conservatives said Mr Zahawi’s move is the latest in a number of “has-been politicians looking for their next gravy train”.
Other parties hit out
A Conservative spokesman added: “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.
“Reform want higher welfare spending and higher taxes. They are a one-man band with no plan for our country.”
The Liberal Democrat MP for Mr Zahawi’s old seat of Stratford-upon-Avon, Manuela Perteghella, said: “Reform is becoming a retirement home for disgraced former Conservative ministers.”
Before Monday, sitting MP Danny Kruger, who was a Tory shadow cabinet member at the time, was the most senior Tory to have defected to Reform.
Labour Party chair Anna Turley said Reform has “no shame” as Mr Zahawi is a “discredited and disgraced politician who will be forever tied to the Tories’ shameful record of failure in government”.
