Ex-Tory chancellor Nadhim Zahawi defects to Reform UK

Former Conservative chancellor Nadhim Zahawi has joined Reform UK, he has announced.

The former MP and minister, who also led the Conservative government’s vaccine programme in the early days of the pandemic, said Britain was “drinking at the last chance saloon” and “really does need Nigel Farage as prime minister”.

Mr Zahawi announced his defection at a press conference in central London on Monday, where he appeared alongside Reform UK leader Mr Farage.

Mr Farage insisted the ex-Tory big beast’s move to his party helped to dispel suggestions Reform UK was a “one-man band”.

But Conservative sources said the move had followed repeated requests from Mr Zahawi for a peerage from his old party, which had been refused.

A Tory source said: “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.”

Mr Zahawi was sacked as Conservative Party chairman in 2023 after he was found to have breached the ministerial code over his tax affairs.

He later confirmed he paid a nearly £5 million penalty to HMRC in order to settle the matter.

Asked about the incident, Mr Farage gave his backing to the newest Reform UK member.

He said: “There’s nobody with a complex business empire that does not have to have negotiations at some point with HMRC.

“That is how the world works, and I’d much rather have Nadhim who has been through that experience and come out the other end.

“He could have just gone abroad. He could have just disappeared for a few years, not paid any tax, which by the way, increasingly is what people are doing.”

Former vaccines minister Mr Zahawi meanwhile brushed aside repeated questions about Reform-linked figures who had expressed vaccine-sceptic views.

Aseem Malhotra, a British doctor and adviser to US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, was widely criticised for claiming at Reform’s annual conference last September that Covid vaccines were likely a “factor in the cancers in the royal family”.

Mr Zahawi described questions about the claims as “stupid”.

He added: “I would not be sitting here, nor would Nigel be sitting next to me, if we didn’t agree that we did the right thing for the nation to get the vaccine programme to the success that it achieved.”

Elsewhere, the two men were probed about their past exchanges on social media, including one Twitter post from 2015 in which Mr Zahawi described his new party leader as “offensive and racist”.

But the defector laughed them off, telling reporters: “Good on you for digging out tweets from 11 years ago”.

Mr Farage was meanwhile found to have criticised his new party member when he was appointed chancellor in 2022 for “climbing the greasy pole”.

The Reform UK leader said he had always been a “big supporter” and a “fan” of Mr Zahawi, adding: “I was disappointed that he decided to join what I thought was a failing government at that point in time.”

Mr Zahawi, who was the Conservative member of Parliament for Stratford-on-Avon until the 2024 general election, revealed he allowed his Tory membership to lapse in December 2025.

He added that he had come to the conclusion the UK is facing a “national emergency” before joining Reform, and insisted he had not been promised a job in a future Farage-led government as a means of sweetening his transition.

Former Cabinet minister Mr Zahawi is potentially the most-significant Conservative defection to Reform UK so far.

His move to the party follows on the heels of sitting MP for East Wiltshire Danny Kruger, and a host of ex-MPs, including Dame Andrea Jenkyns, now the mayor of Greater Lincolnshire.

The Tories described Mr Zahawi’s defection as the latest of a number of “has-been politicians looking for their next gravy train”.A Conservative spokesman added: “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.”