Former Tory Home Secretary Suella Braverman defects to Reform

The MP for Fareham and Waterlooville becomes the latest high profile Conservative to join Nigel Farage’s party.

She announced the move at a press conference on Monday.

Former leadership challenger Robert Jenrick defected earlier this month, as did Romford MP Andrew Rosindell.

It means the party now has eight MPs - one behind the SNP, which is the fourth-biggest party in the Commons.

Ms Braverman said Nigel Farage was the only man in UK politics who has been “courageously consistent” as she took to the stage at a Reform UK event for veterans.

She said that her stance while a minister of calling for leaving the European Convention on Human Rights led to her being “sacked” and “punished” for “telling the truth”.

She called the Conservatives’ current promise to leave the ECHR “a lie”.

“I’m calling time. I’m calling time on Tory betrayal. I’m calling time on Tory lies. I’m calling time on a party that keeps making promises with zero intention of keeping them.”

She told the crowd: “I feel like I’ve come home.”

She added: “Britain is indeed broken. She is suffering. She is not well. Immigration is out of control. Our public services are on their knees. People don’t feel safe.

“Our youngsters are leaving the country for better futures elsewhere.

“We can’t even defend ourselves, and our nation stands weak and humiliated on the world stage.

“So we stand at a crossroads.

“We can either continue down this route of managed decline to weakness and surrender. Or we can fix our country, reclaim our power, rediscover our strength.

“I believe that a better Britain is possible.

“And because I believe that is possible, today I’m announcing that I resign the Conservative whip.

“I resigned the Conservative whip and my party membership, my party membership of 30 years. It’s gone. It’s over today.

“And because I believe, with my heart and soul, that a better future is possible for us, I am joining Reform UK.”

She later added: “There is only one man in British politics who has been courageously consistent for his country, and that man is Nigel Farage.”

Ms Braverman was first made Home Secretary in September 2022 under Liz Truss’ short period as Prime Minister.

She resigned in October 2022 following claims she had broken the ministerial code by sending a Cabinet document on her personal email.

But she was reinstated six days later by Rishi Sunak when he took over from Ms Truss.

Ms Braverman was then sacked in November 2023 and replace by James Cleverly, who had been Foreign Secretary.

A Conservative Party spokesman said: “It was always a matter of when, not if, Suella would defect. The Conservatives did all we could to look after Suella’s mental health, but she was clearly very unhappy. She says she feels that she has ‘come home’, which will come as a surprise to the people who chose not to elect a Reform MP in her constituency in 2024.

“There are some people who are MPs because they care about their communities and want to deliver a better country. There are others who do it for their personal ambition. Suella stood for leader of the Conservatives in 2022 and came sixth, behind Kemi and Tom Tugendhat. In 2024 she could not even muster enough supporters to get on the ballot. She has now decided to try her luck with Nigel Farage, who said last year he didn’t want her in Reform. They really are doing our ‘Spring cleaning'!

“As always happens with Reform, they unveil defections just when the Labour government is tearing itself to pieces – Rayner, Mandelson, now Burnham. Reform are too busy opposing the Conservatives to hold the Labour government to account. The Conservative Party is now the only party that believes in smaller government, less welfare and Britain living within its means, and has the team and the experience to get Britain working again."