Former UK chancellor defects to Reform as far right courts disaffected Conservatives

MANCHESTER, England (CN) — A former Conservative chancellor defected to the right-wing party Reform UK on Monday, saying the country was facing a “dark and dangerous” moment and needed “a glorious revolution.”

Flanked by Reform leader Nigel Farage at a news conference, Nadhim Zahawi said Britain was “broken” but added: “I am inspired by Reform, our best days can lie ahead.”

Zahawi, who served two months as chancellor under former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, said his decision was driven by concerns over free speech, mass migration and what he called an “over-powerful” civil service.

Zahawi, who was born in Iraq before his family fled to the U.K. during Saddam Hussein’s rise to power, had previously raised concerns about Farage.

In 2015, Zahawi told Farage: “I’m not British born Mr. Nigel Farage, I’m as British as you are. Your comments are offensive and racist. I would be frightened to live in a country run by you.”

On Monday, pressed on his previous comments, Zahawi said: “If I thought the man sitting next to me had in any way a problem with people of my color, or my background … I wouldn’t be sitting next to him.”

Highest profile defector to date

Farage unveiled Zahawi as one of around 20 former Conservative members of Parliament to join his right-wing populist party, which was founded as the Brexit Party and then pivoted to issues including lowering taxes, limiting immigration and reducing public spending.

The political firebrand Farage has built Reform into a popular right-wing alternative, though a January YouGov poll shows Britons prefer Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch over Farage as prime minister in a head-to-head contest. Respondents gave Badenoch the same mark as the unpopular serving Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer — 28%. Starmer also got higher numbers than Farage, with 36% of people saying he would make a better leader, to Farage’s 29%.

Farage rejected claims that by taking in Tory politicians his party was becoming “the Conservatives 2.0,” saying he had fought the Conservatives “tooth and nail” over Brexit.

The Conservative Party was broadly divided on the referendum to leave the European Union in 2016. Roughly 42% backed the Leave campaign while a small majority publicly supported the Remain campaign.

A Conservative Party spokesman dismissed the move, saying Reform was “fast becoming the party of has-been politicians looking for their next gravy train.”

The center-left-Labour and the centrist Liberal Democrats were equally blunt.

Labour Party chair Anna Turley, a member of Parliament, said Zahawi was “a discredited and disgraced politician” who had previously “repeatedly lambasted his new boss over his divisive and extreme rhetoric.”

Liberal Democrat lawmaker Manuela Perteghella, who now represents Zahawi’s former seat of Stratford-on-Avon, said: “Reform is becoming a retirement home for disgraced former Conservative ministers.”

Zahawi has had a turbulent career at the top of British politics.

Alongside his brief tenure as chancellor in 2022, he served as education secretary, vaccines minister during the Covid-19 pandemic and chairman of the Conservative Party.

He was sacked from that final role in January 2023 after the prime minister’s ethics adviser found he had breached ministerial rules by failing to disclose that his tax affairs were under investigation.

He later settled about 5 million pounds ($6.7 million) with the tax authority, including a penalty, over what were described as careless errors linked to shares held through an offshore firm.

Reform announces Muslim mayoral candidate for London

Last week, Reform announced another former Conservative figure as its candidate for London’s next mayoral election, scheduled for 2028.

The party named Laila Cunningham, a former Conservative councillor and Crown Prosecution Service lawyer, who said she would wage an “all-out war on crime” if elected to replace Labour’s Sadiq Khan.

Cunningham, a practicing Muslim with Egyptian parents who was born in London, has said mass immigration caused Britain to lose “its tradition” and declared: “I’m a Muslim, but as mayor, I would want the burka banned.”

She has also accused Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood of avoiding a visa ban on Pakistan to protect a “Pakistani voter base” and endorsed U.S. President Donald Trump’s claim that London was drifting toward sharia law, comments that drew accusations of racism.

Courthouse News reporter James Francis Whitehead is based in England.

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