Fomer chancellor Nadim Zahawi defects to Reform UK

Former Conservative chancellor Nadhim Zahawi has defected to Reform UK.

Party leader Nigel Farage announced the move at a press conference on Monday.

A former Conservative MP, Zahawi was chancellor for two months under Boris Johnson and served as a government minister from 2018 to 2023.

He said he felt the UK had reached a “dark and dangerous” moment, which was why the UK needed “a glorious revolution”, as he outlined why he was joining Farage’s party.

In a speech to Reform supporters, Zahawi said issues with free speech “on X or even just down the pub”, and anyone trying to earn a living “without getting ground into the dirt” by taxes were reasons for his move.

Zahawi is the most senior of the former Conservative MPs to have joined Reform UK.

As well as his two months as chancellor at the end of Boris Johnson’s time as prime minister, he 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 former MP 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.