Nigel Farage claimed the Tories are “going to get nastier still” after an extraordinary attack from Kemi Badenoch’s party on Suella Braverman.
The Reform leader said the Conservatives were facing a “cataclysm” at the 7 May elections and as a result were escalating their personal attacks on MPs who had decided to jump ship.
Former home secretary Braverman became the latest senior Tory MP to defect, saying she no longer felt politically at home in the Conservatives.
She said she been thinking of switching parties for a number of years but finally decided to change after being made the subject of a number of “hostile briefings” from the party, including the leader’s office, in recent days.
More Tories expected to follow
Several more Tory MPs and peers are expected to defect before Farage’s deadline of 7 May, the day of the local and devolved administration elections, when Reform are expected to scoop seats from both Labour and Conservatives.
Following Braverman’s defection on Monday morning, the Conservative party issued an extraordinary statement raising questions over the former home secretary’s mental health, before retracting that section two hours later, claiming it was a “draft” that had been sent in error.
The original statement read: “It was always a matter of when, not if, Suella would defect. The Conservatives did all we could to look after Suella’s mental health, but she was clearly very unhappy. She says she feels that she has ‘come home’, which will come as a surprise to the people who chose not to elect a Reform MP in her constituency in 2024.”
Badenoch facing a ‘cataclysm’ Nigel Farage claims
Asked by The i Paper whether their response to Braverman’s defection meant the Tories were once again turning into the “nasty party”, Farage said: “They are going to get nastier still. They know what you perhaps don’t know, which is what the polling is telling them for May 7.”
He said Badenoch’s party was facing a “cataclysm” in the local and devolved elections in Scotland and Wales, adding: “One or two nasty words about Suella today – that is absolutely nothing compared to what they are going to do to me in the next few months.”
Responding to the same question, Braverman said it was “very sad to watch” what was happening to the Tories, adding: “This was a great party once upon a time, the party of Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher.”
At a press conference in Westminster, Braverman said the comments about her mental health “say more about them than they do about me”.
Braverman: ‘They chose the weak option’
The former home secretary said the Conservatives had chosen to do the wrong thing, they chose the weak option” at “every junction when it mattered”.
She added: “Many of those same people lead the party today, and yet I still stayed loyal and when I diagnosed all of these problems after the last general election, the leader [Kemi Badenoch] herself said I was having a nervous breakdown, something she seems to have repeated again today.”
Braverman described the Conservative attack on her as “a bit pathetic” but suggested more Tories were poised to defect, adding: “Right wingers no longer have a home within the party” and claimed that Badenoch had ordered a “witchhunt” demanding “pledges of allegiance to the supreme leader”.
She said the last time she had spoken to Badenoch was when the latter had asked her for her support during the 2024 Tory leadership contest, during a conversation in which she apologised to Braverman for her comments about a nervous breakdown.
Anger across Westminster
The original Tory statement provoked anger from across Westminster.
Former Conservative MP and ex-deputy speaker Nigel Evans told Sky News: “The statement issued on behalf of the Conservatives making reference to the mental health of Suella I think is an absolute disgrace. I think they should withdraw that statement immediately, I think it’s appalling.
“People defect for all sorts of reasons and indeed we had a defection from Reform to the Conservatives, a councillor, just a couple of weeks ago. I just think it is completely underhand and I think it’s an absolute disgrace that they made reference to that.”
Home Office minister Mike Tapp wrote on X: “I have no sympathy for Suella Braverman when it comes to politics and what she did to our immigration system.
“But the Tories attacking her mental health is below the standards we expect. British values are strong but decent, firm but fair. Neither the Tories nor Reform sign up to that.”
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Former minster Lord (Stewart) Jackson, who is still a Tory peer, tweeted: “What a nasty and unpleasant statement from @Conservatives. That’s another few thousand votes they’ve lost.”
Amid talk of further defections, Badenoch’s Parliamentary Private Secretary John Glen, has been having a series of breakfasts to reach out to a watch list of potential defectors.
The i Paper understands the list includes Sir John Hayes, Esther McVey and Sir Desmond Swayne. Also included on the list are MPs from the 2024 intake, Katie Lam, Bradley Thomas and Lewis Cocking, all considered potential flight risks to a greater or lesser extent.
The Conservative Party said the initial statement was a draft sent in error before sending their corrected statement which did not include a reference to mental health.
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