Former Home Secretary Suella Braverman has accused the Conservative Party of “betrayal” as she became the latest MP to defect to Reform UK.
Braverman is the third sitting Conservative MP to join Nigel Farage’s party in the last eleven days, bringing Reform’s total number of MPs to eight.
At a press conference following her defection, Braverman stated she had felt “politically homeless for the best part of two years,” citing disagreements over Brexit and immigration policies.
Her defection follows closely on the heels of Robert Jenrick and Andrew Rosindell, who also departed from the Conservatives earlier this month.
In response to her defection, the Conservative Party issued a statement indicating it was “always a matter of when, not if, Suella would defect.”
“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,” the spokesman added.
The party’s initial statement also included a remark that “The Conservatives did all we could to look after Suella’s mental health, but she was clearly very unhappy,” which was later retracted.
The party subsequently issued a corrected statement, removing the sentence and stating the original lines were “a draft version” that had been “sent out in error.”
Braverman characterized the reference to her mental health as “a bit pathetic” and “more signs of a bitter and desperate party that seems to be in free-fall.”
Former Conservative MP Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg has called for the party to dismiss the individual responsible for approving the press release containing the remark about her mental health.
Speaking on the BBC’s Newsnight programme, Sir Jacob described the statement as a “dreadful and inexcusable thing to have said.”
Answering questions regarding the timing of her decision to leave the Conservatives, Braverman likened the process to “a divorce.”
“Gradually there is an erosion of trust and the breakdown of affiliation, love even, if you can call it that,” she explained.
She accused the Conservatives of failing on Brexit while delivering “out-of-control immigration” and high taxes.
She stated “the final straw came in the last few days” amid what appeared to be a “concentrated effort, a witch hunt to hound out right-wingers.”
She urged local Conservative activists in her constituency of Fareham and Waterlooville – acknowledging their potential “upset and disappointment” – to join her at Reform.
When asked about concerns that Reform was accepting too many former Conservatives, Farage responded: “We need the experience of people who were on the front line – that is the one commodity we are short of.”
A prominent figure on the right wing of the party during the last government, Braverman had long been considered a potential defector to Reform at Westminster.
Her unveiling as Reform’s latest recruit was a surprise announcement by Farage during an event launching a party group for military veterans in London.
Braverman, who has served as an MP since 2015, was attorney general under Boris Johnson and became home secretary under Liz Truss in September 2022.
She was compelled to resign from the role a month later after it emerged that she had sent an official document to a Tory colleague using her personal email.
Rishi Sunak re-appointed her to the position just six days later upon entering Downing Street but dismissed her the following year over an article accusing the Metropolitan Police of bias in the policing of pro-Palestinian protests in London.
Farage stated he had been in discussions with Braverman for “just over a year” regarding the possibility of her defecting and that she had “reached the view that actually the centre-right of British politics needs to unify around Reform.”
He characterized her record as home secretary as “utterly useless.”
“They all were utterly useless because they were stuck within the ECHR [European Convention on Human Rights],” he told reporters.
“The government was a failure but she’s now prepared to put her hands up and say, ‘we got it wrong’.”
The ECHR has been cited by some politicians as an impediment to deporting illegal migrants.
The Labour government is in negotiations concerning the interpretation of the treaty.
Braverman stated that the Conservatives’ pledge to leave the convention altogether was “a lie.”
In addition to the four sitting Conservative MPs who have now joined Reform, approximately 20 former Tory MPs have made the transition since the general election, including former ministers Nadhim Zahawi, Nadine Dorries and Jake Berry.
Henry Smith – one of those ex-MPs to make the switch – said Braverman had tried to “steer the last government in a Conservative direction” but had been “very much stopped in her tracks”.
Speaking to Matt Chorley on BBC Radio 5 Live, the former Crawley MP said that while the Conservative leadership “might be making noises to the right”, many Conservative MPs were “quite frankly more comfortable in a much more Liberal Democrat position”.
Appearing on the same programme, Conservative MP Sir Bernard Jenkin said: “People like Suella and Rob Jenrick are leaving the Conservative Party just at the time when Kemi is sorting all these things out, and she’s beginning to pull us up in the polls.
“Maybe it’s because she’s doing better that they’re leaving.”
Labour Party chair Anna Turley said: “Nigel Farage is stuffing his party full of the failed Tories responsible for the chaos and decline that held Britain back for 14 years.”
Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper said “Farage has recruited yet another Conservative minister with selective amnesia – one who complains about broken Britain while conveniently forgetting they helped break it.”
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