Former Conservative Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi today defected to Reform, becoming the most high-profile former Tory to join Nigel Farage’s Party.
The Iraq-born politician, who held a raft of cabinet jobs under four different prime ministers, was unveiled by Mr Farage at a press conference in London today.
The 58-year-old was Boris Johnson’s vaccines minister during the Covid pandemic, but was later forced to quit government over his tax affairs. He stepped down as Stratford-on-Avon MP at the last election.
Mr Zahawi said Britain is ‘drinking at the last chance saloon’ and ‘really does need Nigel Farage as prime minister’ in a video message announcing his defection.
The former Conservative chancellor added: ‘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 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 UK.’
Mr Zahawi once wrote that there was ‘no chance’ he would join Nigel Farage, writing in 2014 that he had ‘been a Conservative all my life and will die a Conservative’.
But he follows Tory MPs including Nadine Dorries, Danny Kruger and Andrea Jenkyn in joining Reform.
Mr Zahawi arrived in Britain in the 1970s as a Kurdish refugee fleeing Saddam Hussein’s brutal regime in Iraq.
He has previously described how, aged 11, he sat at the back of a classroom in the UK ‘unable to speak a word of English’.
But he went on to make a fortune founding polling firm YouGov from an office in his garden shed, as well as building a £100million property portfolio.
His political career saw him first enter Parliament as a Tory MP in 2010 before becoming Chancellor little more than 12 years later.
But he was sacked by Rishi Sunak as a result of a fierce row over his tax affairs.
In 2015 he attacked Mr Farage’s policies as the leader of Ukip, saying that ‘in Farage’s Britain people like me could be lawfully discriminated against’ because they were British but born abroad.
Today he insisted that those misgivings are behind him as he backed Mr Farage to be PM.
‘We can all see that our beautiful, ancient, kind, magical island story has reached a dark and dangerous chapter,’ he said.
‘Things might feel like they are ticking along just fine within a few square miles of where we stand today. But in so much of the rest of the country, the sickness is no surprise to anyone.
‘To anyone trying to get a doctor’s appointment, to anyone who wants to express an opinion, whether on X or even just down the pub, to anyone who wants their children to be taught facts, not harmful fictions at school, to anyone just trying to earn a living and not be crushed into the dirt by ever-growing taxes.
‘Even if you don’t yet realise that Britain needs Reform, you know in your heart of hearts that our wonderful country is sick.’
Mr Farage insisted the ex-Tory big beast’s move to his party helped to dispel suggestions Reform UK was a ‘one-man band’.
But the Tories said Mr Zahawi is the latest of a number of ‘has-been politicians looking for their next gravy train’.
A Conservative spokesman said: ‘Reform is 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.
‘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.’
