Suella Braverman: Fareham and Waterlooville Conservative MP defects to Reform UK stating she's "come home"
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Former home secretary Suella Braverman has become the latest Conservative politician to defect to Reform UK.
The Fareham and Waterlooville MP announced the decision with immediate effect on Monday (January 26) after rampant speculation.
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,” she added. “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 is now Reform’s eighth MP. She was serving in the Home Office alongside fellow defector Robert Jenrick, who switched political parties on January 15.
She held a Tory membership for 30 years, previously serving as home secretary under the governments of Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak. The MP resigned from the position on October 19, 2022, following public claims that she had broken the Ministerial Code after having sent a Cabinet document using her personal email address. She was reinstated six days later.
Mr Sunak dismissed her in November 2023 during a cabinet reshuffle. Ms Braverman joins a growing contingent of former Conservative MPs in Reform UK, headed up by Nigel Farage.
Recent defections include former chancellor Nadim Zahawi - who was previously sacked for failing to disclose that HMRC were investigating his taxes - Sarah Pochin, Nadine Dorris, Jonathan Gullis, Chris Green, and others.
Ms Braverman’s office in September denied that she was planning to switch parties. A spokesman said: "She is definitely not defecting."
Her husband, Rael Braverman, was a member of Reform for a few months before quitting in July due to criticism of his wife over her immigration policies while at the helm of the Home Office.