On a chilly January morning in London, former Chancellor of the Exchequer Nadhim Zahawi took his seat beside Nigel Farage at a Reform UK press conference, marking one of the most dramatic political defections in recent memory. With cameras flashing and reporters poised, Zahawi declared, “Britain needs Nigel Farage as prime minister” and “Britain needs Reform,” signaling not only a personal shift but also a broader political realignment that has set tongues wagging across Westminster.
Zahawi’s move, announced on January 12, 2026, is no ordinary party switch. According to The Guardian and Bloomberg, his recruitment represents the most senior defection yet from the Conservative Party to Reform UK, the populist outfit now led by Farage and currently leading in several opinion polls. Zahawi joins a growing list of former Conservative MPs and councilors who have abandoned the Tories for Reform, but his profile as a former chancellor and cabinet minister gives this defection particular weight.
The timing of Zahawi’s leap is hardly coincidental. Tory insiders revealed to The Guardian that just weeks before his public embrace of Reform, Zahawi had sought a peerage from the Conservative leadership. He reportedly lobbied Kemi Badenoch’s team for a seat in the House of Lords—a request that was quietly rebuffed due to his 2023 sacking as Conservative party chair over tax affairs. “Nadhim asked for a peerage several times. Given he was sacked for his dodgy tax affairs, this was never going to happen,” a senior Conservative source told The Guardian. The rejection, they said, made his subsequent defection all the more telling: “His defection tells you everything you need to know about Reform being a repository for disgraced politicians.”
Zahawi, for his part, insists his motives are rooted in principle, not personal advancement. Letting his Tory membership lapse in December 2025, he told reporters he joined Reform as a “foot soldier,” without any promise of a specific role. He painted a grim picture of Britain’s current trajectory, warning of “civil unrest” and asserting that only a government led by Farage could prevent it. “My analysis is that a huge culprit is the over-mighty bureaucratic inertia that now dominates and runs the country,” he said at the press conference, lamenting a state that “restricts the individual liberty of each and every one of us.”
Yet Zahawi’s new alliance is not without its ironies—or its awkward moments. Reporters unearthed a 2015 tweet in which Zahawi, then a newly minted Tory MP, had lashed out at Farage: “I’m not British born Mr Nigel Farage. I am as British as you are. Your comments are offensive and racist. I would be frightened to live in a country run by you.” The tweet, which Zahawi deleted shortly after the press conference, resurfaced as a pointed reminder of his previous stance. When pressed on it, Zahawi chuckled alongside Farage and replied, “Good on you for digging out a tweet from 11 years ago. All I would say to you is that if 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, proud of this country, worked hard for this country, paid millions of pounds in tax for this country, invested in this country, I wouldn’t be sitting next to him. And I think he wouldn’t be sitting next to me, either.”
This wasn’t Zahawi’s only past criticism of Farage. In 2015, he wrote for ConservativeHome that, “In Farage’s Britain, it would be legal to discriminate against me on the grounds of race,” referencing a controversial interview in which Farage appeared to oppose laws banning employment discrimination. Farage later claimed he was “wilfully misrepresented,” but the episode remains a lightning rod for critics. The press conference saw Zahawi repeatedly defending Farage against allegations of racism and antisemitism—allegations fueled by claims from thirty-four of Farage’s former schoolmates, who say they witnessed racist or antisemitic behavior. Zahawi, however, was adamant: “If I thought this man sitting next to me in any way had an issue with people of my colour or my background... I wouldn’t be sitting next to him.”
For Farage, Zahawi’s arrival is a coup that he hopes will bolster Reform’s credibility as a serious contender for government. “Our 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,” Farage said, according to The Guardian. Nick Candy, Reform’s treasurer and a personal friend of Zahawi, played a key role in brokering the move and is expected to help leverage Zahawi’s connections for new donations.
The response from Zahawi’s former party was swift and scathing. Conservative spokespeople dismissed him as just another “has-been politician looking for their next gravy train,” and pointedly reminded reporters that he’d once said he’d be “frightened to live in a country run by Nigel Farage, which shows the level of loyalty for sale.” They also criticized Reform’s policies, claiming, “Reform want higher welfare spending and higher taxes. They are a one-man band with no plan for our country.”
Labour, too, was quick to pounce. Party chair Anna Turley didn’t mince words, telling The Guardian, “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.”
Liberal Democrat MP Manuela Perteghella, who now represents Zahawi’s former Stratford-on-Avon seat, was equally dismissive, quipping to the press that “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.”
Zahawi’s defection marks him as the 22nd former Conservative MP to join Reform UK, underscoring the scale of the exodus from the Tories’ ranks. While Zahawi insists his move is about rescuing the nation from what he calls “a dark and dangerous chapter,” his critics see it as the latest twist in a career marked by controversy—and a sign of just how turbulent British politics has become as the country heads into a new era of uncertainty.
Whatever the motivations, the spectacle of Zahawi and Farage sharing a stage—once adversaries, now allies—offers a vivid snapshot of a political landscape in flux, where yesterday’s rivals can become today’s partners in the blink of an eye.
