{"id":692581,"date":"2026-01-13T05:49:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T05:49:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/692581\/"},"modified":"2026-01-13T05:49:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T05:49:14","slug":"nadhim-zahawi-failed-in-bid-for-peerage-from-tories-before-reform-defection-sources-say-nadhim-zahawi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/692581\/","title":{"rendered":"Nadhim Zahawi failed in bid for peerage from Tories before Reform defection, sources say | Nadhim Zahawi"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nadhim Zahawi was rejected for a peerage by the Conservatives<\/a> just weeks before he defected to Reform UK, Tory sources have told the Guardian.<\/p>\n

The former chancellor asked Kemi Badenoch\u2019s top team for a seat in the House of Lords but was rebuffed because he had been sacked as Tory chair in 2023<\/a> over his tax affairs.<\/p>\n

Zahawi was announced on Monday as Reform\u2019s newest recruit \u2013 and the most senior former Tory to join it \u2013 as the former MP claimed Britain was on the brink of \u201ccivil unrest\u201d and only a government led by Nigel Farage<\/a> could prevent it.<\/p>\n

Both men faced awkward questions at a press conference where Zahawi was asked about his claim that Farage had made \u201coffensive and racist\u201d comments about him.<\/p>\n

Zahawi with Nigel Farage at the press conference on Monday, during which he was forced to defend the Reform leader over allegations of racism and antisemitism. Photograph: Lucy North\/PA<\/p>\n

The Conservatives also revealed that Zahawi, who held a series of ministerial roles under Boris Johnson, had been in touch with senior party figures as recently as the end of last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cNadhim asked for a peerage several times. Given he was sacked for his dodgy tax affairs, this was never going to happen,\u201d a Tory source said. \u201cHis defection tells you everything you need to know about Reform being a repository for disgraced politicians.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Tories said the politician had got in touch with them, rather than the other way round. They pointed out that he joined Reform just weeks after Badenoch released her latest political honours list, on which he did not feature.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile he wasn\u2019t rudely rebuffed by us, he was never going to be made a peer,\u201d the source added. \u201cHis defection came at a time that it was apparent he wasn\u2019t going to get one.\u201d<\/p>\n

Appearing alongside Farage in London, the former chancellor said he had let his Tory membership lapse in December before deciding to join Reform, which he said he was doing because the UK needed \u201ca glorious revolution\u201d. He had been promised no specific role in Reform and was joining as a \u201cfoot soldier\u201d, he added.<\/p>\n

Zahawi, who stood down as the MP for Stratford-on-Avon at the last election, was sacked in 2023 as Conservative party chair by Rishi Sunak after he was found to have breached the ministerial code by failing to declare an HMRC investigation into his tax affairs.<\/p>\n

Zahawi cited concerns about what he saw as threats to freedom of speech, the imposition of high taxes and the \u201cbig state\u201d. Nick Candy, Reform\u2019s treasurer and a personal friend, acted as a bridge and Farage said the party would be looking to the former MP to help bring in new donations.<\/p>\n

Zahawi said: \u201cMy analysis is that a huge culprit is the over-mighty bureaucratic inertia that now dominates and runs the country, that has taken control of swathes of the economy and, with barely a shrug of the shoulders, restricts the individual liberty of each and every one of us.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can all see that our beautiful, ancient, kind, magical island story has reached a dark and dangerous chapter.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, he was repeatedly forced to defend Farage over allegations of racism and antisemitism, saying he would not be sitting beside him if he believed he had a \u201cracist bone in his body\u201d.<\/p>\n

Thirty-four school contemporaries of Farage have come forward <\/a>to claim they saw him behave in a racist or antisemitic manner, leading to questions over the Reform leader\u2019s evolving denials.<\/p>\n

A now-deleted tweet from 2015 was also brought up, in which Zahawi had written: \u201cI\u2019m not British born mr Nigel_Farage. I am as British as u r. Yr comments r offensive & racist. I wld be frightened 2 live in a country run by U.\u201d<\/p>\n

When questioned about this tweet on Monday, Zahawi said: \u201cIf I thought this man sitting next to me in any way had an issue with people of my colour or my background who have come to this country, who have integrated, assimilated, are proud of this country, worked hard in this country, paid millions of pounds in taxes in this country, invested in the country, I wouldn\u2019t be sitting next to him.\u201d<\/p>\n

The tweet appeared to have been in response to a broadcast interview in 2015 in which Farage was asked if he was in favour of keeping laws that ban employment discrimination on the grounds of race or colour. Farage answered \u201cno\u201d though later claimed he had been \u201cwilfully misrepresented\u201d.<\/p>\n

Zahawi also wrote a piece<\/a> for the website ConservativeHome at the time, under the headline: \u201cIn Farage\u2019s Britain, it would be legal to discriminate against me on the grounds of race.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Reform leader said Zahawi\u2019s arrival would help to bolster the party\u2019s credentials as a serious contender for government, adding: \u201cOur weakness is that we lack frontline experience. People like Nadhim have been on the inside. They know how government works or how government does not work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zahawi also attempted to brush aside questions about Reform-linked figures who had expressed vaccine-sceptic views, including Aseem Malhotra, a British doctor who repeated a claim at Reform\u2019s annual conference last September<\/a> that Covid vaccines were likely a \u201cfactor in the cancers in the royal family\u201d.<\/p>\n

The former MP, who oversaw the rollout of the Covid-19 vaccine when he served in Boris Johnson\u2019s government, described questions about the claims as \u201cstupid\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would not be sitting here, nor would Nigel be sitting next to me, if we didn\u2019t agree that we did the right thing for the nation to get the vaccine programme to the success that it achieved,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Anna Turley, the Labour party chair, said of the defection: \u201cThis confirms what we already knew: Reform UK has no shame. Nadhim Zahawi<\/a> is a discredited and disgraced politician who will be for ever tied to the Tories\u2019 shameful record of failure in government.<\/p>\n

\u201cZahawi himself has previously repeatedly lambasted his new boss over his divisive and extreme rhetoric \u2013 and Farage has said that Zahawi has no principles and is only interested in climbing the greasy pole.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nadhim Zahawi was rejected for a peerage by the Conservatives just weeks before he defected to Reform UK,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":692582,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[12,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-692581","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"category-united-kingdom","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115886225015205006","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=692581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/692582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=692581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=692581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=692581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}