Nadhim Zahawi approached Kemi Badenoch’s team about trying to become a Tory peer – only to defect to Reform UK after being told he would not get one, Pippa Crerar reports.
❤️🔥Tory sources confirm that Nadhim Zahawi made approaches to senior members of Kemi Badenoch’s team about getting a peerage just weeks before defecting to Reform UK – but was turned down.
Tory source: “Nadhim asked for a peerage several times. Given he was sacked for his dodgy tax affairs, this was never going to happen. His defection tells you everything you need to know about Reform being a repository for disgraced politicians.”
The Telegraph’s Tony Diver has been given the same briefing.
Nadhim Zahawi was denied a Conservative peerage weeks before he defected to Reform, Tory sources claim.
Zahawi said to have made “multiple approaches” in late 2024, asking to be on the most recent political peerages list.
“We were very clear he wasn’t going to get one.”
Zahawi is said to have made approaches in person and on the phone to senior members of Kemi Badenoch’s team. Tories say he was told that he was “not suitable” for elevation because of his resignation from the Sunak cabinet over unpaid tax.
Zahawi does not dispute that he discussed a peerage, but says he has a “message from the top that they want to look at elevating me” and said he was told he would be contacted again about it in 2026.
Diver is the reporter who was insulted by Zahawi at the press conference this morning after he asked a good and perfectly reasonable question about how Zahawi felt to be joining a party that allowed a US health expert to give a speech at the Reform UK conference suggestion that the Covid vaccine programme that Zahawi oversaw may have given the king cancer. (See 11.56am.)
Updated at 09.21 EST
Key events
Please turn on JavaScript to use this feature
Nadhim Zahawi’s defection – snap verdict
Tory defections are becoming relatively commonplace now, but there was still something striking about Nigel Farage being able to unveil Nadhim Zahawi as a new recruit this morning. There are now at least 22 former Tory MPs in Reform UK (there is a list of 20 of them here, plus Ben Bradley, plus Zahawi), and that is not including the two former Tory MPs who are now Reform UK MPs (Lee Anderson and Danny Kruger).
Almost without exception, recruits from the Tories to Farage have all come from the more shifty, opportunist wing of the party (other adjectives are available) and Zahawi, who called on Boris Johnson to quit only 24 hours after agreeing to serve him loyally as chancellor and who was later sacked from cabinet by Rishi Sunak over an ethics breach, won’t do anything to change the Lib Dem thesis about what is happening. (See 1.13pm.)
But Zahawi is still technically the most senior person to cross the floor. As vaccines minister during Covid, he established a higher profile than most cabinet minsters. And, above all, his defection implies some sort of snowball effect is underway, and that there is an inevitability about Reform UK eclipsing the Tories.
Farage always insists, and did again this morning, that the two parties are different. And the Conservative party is also happy to claim that the two organisations remain very distinct. But the Tory statement (see 1.23pm) today was a masterclass in wishful thinking. Farage’s party does not support higher welfare spending and higher taxes, with each defection the “one man band” claim becomes a bit weaker, and it is hard to describe Reform UK as has-beens when their polling still looks so encouraging.
But perhaps the debate about whether or not Reform UK will replace the Conservatives as the UK’s party of the right is misframed. Instead, arguably the Tories are regenerating, like Dr Who, with a new name and a new identity, but in other respects just an update on what was there before. Watching the press conference this morning, it was hard to avoid the conclusion that, whatever Farage says, a Reform UK government would heavily infused with Tory DNA.
Zahawi’s defection means the competition for who might be chancellor in a Reform UK government has just opened up. Richard Tice and Zia Yusuf were seen as the lead candidates, but today Zahawi sounded up for a big job.
Or Lord Zahawi, as he may end up. Last week, in an interview with Danny Kruger for the Spectator, Tim Shipman said that Kruger believes Farage might have to appoint 500 new peers to be sure of getting his plans through the upper house. That is a lot of potential peerages for people who have yet to defect. At the press conference this morning, Zahawi did not sound unhappy about the prospect that his name might be on that list.
ShareTories say Reform UK becoming party for ‘has-been politicians looking for next gravy train’
And this is what the Tories are saying about the loss of Nadhim Zahawi. A Conservative spokesperson 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.
ShareReform UK becoming ‘retirement home for disgraced former Conservative ministers’, say Lib Dems
And the Liberal Democrats say that the Nadhim Zahawi defection to Reform UK shows that Nigel Farage’s party is becoming “a retirement home for disgraced former Conservative ministers”.
Manuela Perteghella, who took Stratford-upon-Avon, Zahawi’s former seat, for the Lib Dems at the last election said:
Reform is becoming a retirement home for disgraced former Conservative ministers.
Zahawi served under Liz Truss and Boris Johnson and now he’s being championed by Nigel Farage.
It’s no wonder voters in Stratford kicked out the Conservatives at the last election and put their trust in the Liberal Democrats.
ShareLabour says Zahawi defection shows Reform UK ‘has no shame’
Labour has issued a response to Nadhim Zahawi joining Reform UK from Anna Turley, the Labour party chair. She says:
This confirms what we already knew: Reform UK has no shame. Nadhim Zahawi is a discredited and disgraced politician who will be forever tied to the Tories’ shameful record of failure in government.
Zahawi himself has previously repeatedly lambasted his new boss over his divisive and extreme rhetoric – and Farage has said that Zahawi has no principles and is only interested in climbing the greasy pole. This shameless scurry of yet another failed Tory over to Reform will tell people everything they need to know about both of them.
There are two urgent questions in the Commons this afternoon after 3.30pm, on the “New Medium Helicopter contract and potential closure of Leonardo’s helicopter site in Yeovil” and on water shortages “in East Grinstead and the surrounding villages”.
That means the Liz Kendall statement on “non-consensual sexual deepfakes on social media” will not start until about 5pm.
ShareZahawi calls for police chief to be sacked over Maccabi fans ban, claiming West Midlands police gave in to ‘Islamist thugs’
The final question at the press conference went to Daisy Eastlake from the Times. At Reform UK press conferences, the news organisations deemed hostile to the party (eg, the Guardian, the Daily Mirror etc) normally get called last – although, Farage does make a point of taking questions from every reporter who wants to ask one, which is not what most other party leaders do. Normally the Times gets called quite early. But it must be on the naughty step because of it investigation into Laila Cunningham published last week.
Q: Last week you said that the chief constable of West Midlands police, Craig Guildford, should be sacked for supposedly misrepresenting the evidence used by his force to justice the Maccabi Tel Aviv fans ban. When does that need to happen?
Farage said he was amazed that Guilford has not been sacked already. He claimed that Guildford “hasn’t just lied to everybody, but he’s literally kowtowed to … a form of violent extremism”.
Zahawi said he found the Maccabi Tel Aviv ban really serious. He went on:
The message this sends is so dangerous and corrosive to our country. Why do I say that? Because the question is, who controls our streets?
If the police force in the West Midlands needed additional support, they should have called the home secretary and the defence secretary and got the army in.
No way should we allow Islamist thugs and terrorists to feel that they can have control of our streets.
He suggested Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, would have a “serious problem” if she did not sack Guildford today.
The Times has a story today by Eastlake, Geraldine Scott and David Woode saying that the Commons home affairs committee, which took evidence again from Guildford last week about this matter, is gearing up to call for his sacking or resignation. They say:
Members of the home affairs select committee are understood to be “unanimous in their disappointment” at the evidence given by the force, with several believing it had “retrospectively gathered evidence to suit their decision making” rather than basing the ban on genuine intelligence at the time.
Pressure is mounting on Craig Guildford, the West Midlands chief constable, to go after Maccabi Tel Aviv fans were barred from travelling to the game at Villa Park in November by the local Safety Advisory Group (SAG), which cited safety concerns based on advice from the police force …
One MP told The Times that sacking Guildford would be “the nuclear option” but said there was now “no other option” if their suspicions were confirmed that the force had given a misleading account.
The committee has a Tory chair but a Labour majority.
Updated at 07.50 EST
Zahawi claims that accusations of racism, directed at Farage and others, are now so widespread it’s become ‘joke’
Q: What is your response to the fact that there are now 34 contemporaries of Nigel Farage at Dulwich College who recall Farage being racist when he was a pupil there?
Farage says there are so many allegations of racism being thrown around the whole time that they “almost become meaningless”.
Zahawi says, anticipating this question, he made a point of looking up all the things in Britain that have been called racist. He says the list includes coffee, picnics, electricity and mathematics. He claims this shows that this line of criticism is “a joke”.
Farage says even the Traitors has been called racist, by the Guardian. He must be referring to this.
Zahawi also says, if he thought Farage were racist, he would not be sharing a platform with him.
Updated at 07.36 EST
Q: [To Zahawi] Do you want to return to the Commons? Or has Reform UK offered you the peerage that the Conservative party never gave you?
Zahawi says no promises have been made, and no promises have been sought?
Q: Who approached whom about the defection?
Zahawi says he has known Farage for years. And he also says Nick Candy, the Reform UK treasurer, is a mutual friend.
He says he allowed his Conservative party membership to lapse over Chrismas because he wanted to reflect on his future political allegiance.
Q: Are you comfortable making money from X because of the payments you get for your posts that attract a big audience?
Farage claims he does not make money from X because of the amount he has to spend on staff to operate his social media accounts.
ShareFarage says ‘tragedy of Brexit is we didn’t do it’
Q: Would you refuse to pay if the EU includes an exit payment in any new deal with the UK to reduce SPS checks?
Farage says:
The tragedy of Brexit is we didn’t do it.
We had the pandemic and that’s that. That’s the argument that always gets made. We had the pandemic, therefore we didn’t get time.
For Keir Starmer to realign with single market rules is easy because we never, ever took the opportunity or the potential advantage of moving away from it. So I’m absolutely furious at both of them.
But he also says he is not convinced that Starmer would “sign up to something as treacherous as this”.