Suella Braverman has refused to rule out defecting to Reform UK just weeks after the ex-Home Secretary’s husband joined the populist party’s ranks.
Braverman, who mulled over standing for the Tory leadership in the 2024 race to replace Rishi Sunak, also stopped short of confirming if she would still be a Conservative MP at the end of this Parliament.
Responding to a lifelong Tory voter who just left the Conservative Party, Braverman told The Telegraph: “We let many of our lifelong supporters, just like Trevor. We let them down on immigration, mainly, but also on other things.
“We oversaw a 70-year high tax burden, and we failed to properly take on the politically correct, virtue-signalling woke virus, to use Elon Musk’s words, that has taken over many of our schools and our public services and our Civil Service.”
Suella Braverman
PA
She continued: “I was a Conservative Party member from the age of 14. I’m also a lifelong Conservative voter, I want a Conservative Prime Minister, I want a Conservative Government. And ultimately, in British politics, there isn’t space for two conservative parties.
“So we need to find an accommodation. There’s no way that we’re going to stop Labour.
“If Reform is polling [at] 26 per cent and we’re on 24 per cent, that is a recipe for another five years of Labour. So we need to think about what we do about this problem.”
Braverman also said the Tories made the “wrong decision” to expel ex-deputy chairman Lee Anderson.
Anderson, who then defected to Reform UK and later retained his Ashfield seat in the 2024 General Election, lost the whip after being embroiled in a row with London Mayor Sadiq Khan.
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS:
Nigel FaragePABraverman added that there is “lots of common ground” between the two right-wing parties, highlighting her agreement with Farage on leaving the European Convention on Human Rights.
However, in her first speech of 2025, Tory leader Kemi Badenoch yet again dismissed calls for a pact between the Conservative Party and Reform UK.
Speaking in London, the Leader of the Opposition said: “Nigel Farage says he wants to destroy the Conservative Party. Why on earth would we merge with that?”
Reform UK chairman Zia Yusuf has also downplayed talks of a merger, comparing the populist party joining forces with the Tories to Netflix merging with Blockbuster.
Suella BravermanPAHowever, speculation about Braverman potentially switching to Reform UK comes just weeks after her husband Rael jumped ship to the populist party.
Responding to her husband’s defection, the Fareham & Waterlooville MP said: “My husband and I have a healthy respect for each other’s independence – he doesn’t tell me how to do my job, and I don’t tell him how to pick a political party.”
Earlier this month, GB News also revealed that Reform UK is attracting Conservative bigwigs due to Farage’s pre-existing relationships with veteran Brexiteers.
Speaking to the People’s Channel at Reform UK’s East of England conference, Yusuf said: “We have seen huge growth in those seeking to defect to Reform, despite no outreach efforts.
“This is because they can see Reform is finally breaking the two old parties’ stranglehold on British politics and are willing to stand up for British people.”
A Reform UK source added: “They’re coming to us. We’re not going to take everyone but they’re just as fed up as the country is.”