Can Nadhim Zahawi bring Downing Street experience to Reform UK?

Former cabinet minister Nadhim Zahawi is the latest prominent Conservative to defect to Reform UK – to the obvious delight of its leader, Nigel Farage. Much is made of Zahawi’s expertise and experience, and he claims that he humbly wishes to be a “foot soldier” in Farage’s army because “we can all see that our beautiful, ancient, kind, magical island story has reached a dark and dangerous chapter”.

Critics, including those in his now former party, argue that he’s just another rich, privately educated and discredited “yesterday’s man” looking for his next ride on the gravy train...

Yes, and as such he’s by far the most high-profile Tory defector to Reform. However, it’s fair to add he was only made chancellor in that chaotic period in 2022 when Rishi Sunak resigned and prime minister Boris Johnson found his entire administration collapsing underneath him. Zahawi was thus only ever a caretaker chancellor, though his appointment brought him, in due course, some new personal problems.

After his two-month spell as chancellor – which included a tilt at the party leadership, and then running the Cabinet Office under Liz Truss – Sunak made Zahawi party chair. It was while he was in this role that The Independent published revelations about his tax affairs that ultimately led to him being sacked.

It emerged that on being appointed chancellor (a role that puts him in charge of tax authorities), he had not been fully transparent about an investigation by HMRC into a matter involving capital gains tax. (He was found by HMRC to have been “careless” – a term of censure.)

Another inquiry, this time by the independent adviser on ministerial conduct, found in January 2023 that Zahawi had therefore “shown insufficient regard for the general principles of the ministerial code”. Sunak fired him, and Zahawi stood down from parliament at the 2024 election.

Zahawi was previously criticised in 2013 for claiming back the cost of heating bills for his stables – amounting to £58,000 – on his MP’s expenses, for which he apologised.

A strong media performer, he has a personable manner, and the fine backstory of a Kurdish-born Iraqi refugee who came to Britain with no English and went on to achieve great success in business, including co-founding the polling company YouGov. He welcomes immigrants who wish to integrate and assimilate and are “net contributors”.

Farage admits his party lacks experience at the highest levels of government, so he likes his new recruit’s business background and the way he “gets stuff done”. Zahawi was a competent education secretary – and, a signal achievement, led the team that oversaw the rapid covid vaccine rollout in 2021, something he’s understandably proud of. (The anti-vaxxer community within Reform UK are less impressed.)

By the sounds of it, he’ll be working with Danny Kruger – another recent defector – to make Reform UK ready for the general election, so developing policies, hiring people and raising money. Zahawi could return to the Commons or the House of Lords (if it survives that long). In the event of a Reform government, Zahawi would obviously be a prominent figure, but he’d have to elbow Richard Tice and Zia Yusuf out of the way if he wants his old job as chancellor back. He says that no promises about jobs have been made or sought.

Farage says the elections on 7 May across local authorities, along with the Welsh and Scottish parliaments, will mark the extinction of the Conservative Party, a fresh wave of defections, and a realignment in British politics. Farage then wants to “unite the right” under his leadership, and leave Kemi Badenoch with a rump of centrists.

As a reborn right-wing party inspired by Margaret Thatcher and Enoch Powell, yes indeed. Almost all of its leading lights were once Conservatives who became disillusioned with it during John Major’s leadership and the splits about Europe in the 1990s. Tice, Arron Banks, and Farage himself are all prominent examples of this first wave of dissent flowing into Ukip and then the Brexit Party, at which point the likes of Ann Widdecombe and Tice also jumped ship.

All the current MPs were once Tories (though Lee Anderson was also once Labour), as are all those who’ve joined in more recent times: Kruger, Yusuf, Jake Berry, Jonathan Gullis, Maria Caulfield, Mario Longhi, Andrea Jenkyns and Nadine Dorries, among many others. The party’s councillors, members and, to a lesser extent, voters are overwhelmingly drawn from the right of the Tory party.

The downside of building political and ministerial experience is that Reform risks looking like a bunch of failed Conservative politicians looking to get their jobs back; Farage has had only limited success at drawing in genuinely talented fresh blood from outside politics.

Farage didn’t deny that more former cabinet ministers from the Johnson/Truss/Sunak era could defect; he says he’s talking to “all sorts of people”. He’d surely like to have Jacob Rees-Mogg on board, but this gentleman seems devoutly loyal to the old faith.

The issue will be forced if a by-election is held in his old seat of North East Somerset; current Labour MP Dan Norris has been arrested on suspicion of rape, child sex offences and child abduction, and there’s a petition to force a contest. Would Reform stand a candidate against the beloved Rees-Mogg, even if he’s sticking with the Tories?

Maybe too soon, and probably too toxic.