BREAKING: Suella Braverman defects to reform

Former Conservative Home Secretary Suella Braverman MP has defected to Reform UK.

Nigel Farage made the announcement at a rally for party activists in central London. Whilst announcing it today was a surprise – at a rally to announce a new Reform group supporting veterans – the defection itself has long been anticipated and suspected at CCHQ. The announcement coincided by less than an hour, with the launch of Prosper UK, headed by Ruth Davidson and Andy Street to make the case for a more economic focussed and centre-right Conservative direction.

Despite being attacked online by leading Reformer Zia Yusuf last year over her record on immigration, and over a data breach that released the details of almost 19,000 Afghans fleeing the Taliban in 2022, when she was Home Secretary. This attack led to her husband Rael leaving Reform, but she’s known not to have been happy that she was not given any role in Badenoch’s renewal shadow team, or within the wider party despite her Cabinet experience. She had also felt badly treated post the election by some Conservative colleagues.

One senior Conservative told ConHome a few days ago, following other recent defections:

“If she wants to go she should get on and go. I think it’s clear she’s not happy, and either thinks the Party has given her – or she has created herself – nowhere else to go. I’d say, though, she’s not as significant a loss as she once might have been”

She was Boris Johnson’s attorney general and was made Home Secretary by Liz Truss in September 2022. She was forced to step down from the role a month later, after it emerged she had sent an official document to a colleague using her personal email. Rishi Sunak re-appointed her just six days later upon entering Downing Street himself. However she was again sacked from the role the following year.

Today Braverman told Reform supporters she had also resigned her Tory membership of 30 years, adding:

“I feel like I’ve come home.”

She had in recent weeks told Telegraph readers that her future plans were to be “part of the renaissance of the Conservative party” having said publicly last year on a platform with Reform deputy leader Richard Tice that she was elected a Conservative and was still a Conservative.

She’s the third sitting Tory MP to join Reform this month, following Robert Jenrick and Andrew Rosindell, and with Danny Kruger, the fourth since the 2024 election. She’s the 27th current or former Conservative MP to defect to Reform – now bringing them up to 8 MPs in the Commons.

“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.”