The latest high-profile member of the struggling main opposition Conservative Party to jump ship on Monday announced she was defecting to the anti-immigrant Reform UK party.
Former interior minister Suella Braverman became the fourth current or former Conservative lawmaker — including three ex-ministers — to join Reform in less than a month.
“Immigration is out of control. Our public services are on their knees. People don’t feel safe,” Braverman told a Reform event in London, adding she felt she had “come home” by joining Reform.
“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,” she said.
Led by Brexit figurehead Nigel Farage, the hard-right Reform has been leading by double-digit figures in the polls for the past year as Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour government comes under fire over immigration, the stagnant economy and the cost of living crisis.
Former chancellor Nadhim Zahawi, who is no longer a lawmaker, began the spate of defections on January 12, followed days later by ex-immigration minister Robert Jenrick and then Andrew Rosindell, both sitting MPs.
Braverman brings the number of Reform UK members of parliament to eight.
Ex-Conservative prime minister Rishi Sunak sacked Braverman as interior minister in November 2023 after she accused police of left-wing bias and said homelessness was a “lifestyle choice”.
After her dismissal, the outspoken lawmaker publicly condemned Sunak for “equivocation, disregard and a lack of interest” over several policies, including cutting immigration.
She also denounced as a “betrayal” Sunak’s rejection of withdrawing from the European Convention on Human Rights as a way to push through his government’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda.
Last year saw the second-highest annual number of migrants arrive on UK shores in small boats across from France since records began in 2018.
A total of 41,472 migrants landed on England’s southern coast in 2025 after making the perilous Channel crossing from northern France.
Reform — founded in 2021 from the ashes of Farage’s Brexit Party — won the most seats at last year’s local elections in England.
That has prompted predictions it could seize power from the ruling centre-left Labour at the next general election, due by August 2029.
The party is also hoping to make major gains in local elections slated for May.
The recent collapse in Labour’s polling numbers means the party now faces a tough bellwether by-election fight with Reform and the Green Party to retain a seat in northwestern England it won comfortably in 2024.
The Labour Party on Sunday blocked Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham — seen by some as a potential rival to Starmer — from standing to be an MP in the constituency.
The decision to torpedo Burnham’s hopes of a return to parliament sparked media reports of a “civil war” within Labour.
Playing down the reports, Starmer said Monday the real fight was between Labour and Reform, describing it as the “battle of our times”.
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