Another week in politics, another high-profile Tory defection to Reform.
Suella Braverman, a former Home Secretary, became the latest Conservative former Cabinet minister to jump ship swelling Nigel Farage’s number of sitting MPs to eight.
Apparently unphased by Braverman’s long anticipated switch, Kemi Badenoch mocked Tory defectors as throwing “tantrums dressed up as politics”.
“When my kids have a tantrum, I don’t give up or change my mind. I send them to their room, and I say to everyone else, if that tantrum ever found its way into government, we would all pay the price, because just like Labour, they do not have a plan for government,” she said.
Farage, meanwhile, was celebrating Braverman’s defection. A Reform source said the party hopes its number might rise to 20 MPs in Parliament by this summer, largely driven by Tory defections. A senior Conservative MP dismissed that as wishful thinking: “It’s possible a couple more go, but no more than that.”
‘A long, grinding war of attrition’
Parliamentary defections might be staggered over years to maintain momentum, despite Farage’s spring deadline for councillors, one Reform insider suggests. “We want proper, sitting politicians,” according to a source. Another added: “This is going to be a long, grinding war of attrition.”
Right now, the Tories are torn between name-calling Reform and trying to rise above them. Emotions range from relief that the most high-profile defector, Robert Jenrick, has shown his true colours to hurt, betrayal and rage. “I’ve been friends with Rob for years and we only nod now,” as one member of the Shadow Cabinet put it.
Apparently unphased by Braverman’s long anticipated switch, Badenoch mocked Tory defectors as throwing ‘tantrums dressed up as politics’ (Photo: Dan Kitwood/Getty)Logically, Reform’s jubilation should mean the Tories are miserable. Yet the opposite seems to be true; most senior Conservatives appear chipper. Asked why, one Tory party manager replied they were happy to no longer have to grapple with former colleagues. “I think it’s the weariness of having to deal with them for so many years,” they said.
But another Shadow Cabinet minister is looking to the future, taking a more pragmatic approach. This Conservative said they intend to stay in touch with Jenrick and Danny Kruger, another Tory MP who crossed the floor to Reform.
“There’s a scenario where the two sides might need to talk. It’s very complicated for us because we’re engaged in this fight with them to see who can be the voice of central right values in this country. There are people who want to destroy the Conservative Party in Reform. And in an ideal world the Conservative Party would destroy them.
“But there’s also a scenario where neither party is fully defeated, and there might need to be some kind of arrangement, feasibly in the months before the general election. I think it depends entirely on the gap between the two parties in the polls.
Nigel Farage stands with Suella Braverman during a press conference launching ‘Veterans for Reform’ (Photo: Leon Neal/Getty Images)“But if we’re facing a situation where Labour might win a massive majority, again, even after the failure of this government, people would have to ask themselves if these are still completely unacceptable circumstances for an arrangement. There will be people on both sides who say it is unacceptable,” the Tory source said.
“It may well actually be the story of this Parliament more than Labour’s implosion. It’s an existential battle on the right,” a Reform source agreed.
‘Geriatric politics from an earlier time’
Meanwhile, in Parliament’s Pugin-decorated MPs’ private tearoom on Wednesday, Conservatives eating their lunch were indulging in one of their favourite pastimes: bitching about colleagues. This time, the subject of their ire was the party’s former leader in Scotland, Baroness Ruth Davidson.
Prosper UK was launched on Monday by Davidson and Sir Andy Street, a respected former Mayor of the West Midlands. It aims to attract millions of “politically homeless” voters.
They assert that the Tories need to adopt a more “centrist” approach to effectively challenge Reform UK and attract voters from the middle ground. Their appeal fell flat, as even some of their Conservative colleagues from the One Nation group declined to participate.
Sir Andy Street and Baroness Ruth Davidson believe they can win back voters who have snubbed the Conservatives (Photo: Jane Barlow/PA Wire)One Tory MP described Prosper UK’s analysis as “geriatric politics from an earlier time” which doesn’t reflect the existential battle the party is in with Reform UK. Badenoch gave the pair short shrift in a speech on Wednesday; Tories who have qualms about her rightward direction for the party “need to get out of the way,” she said.
There is evidence to back up her strategy of trying to win back Reform voters, including campaigning to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) rather than tacking to the left as Prosper UK suggested.
“If you appeal to the ‘liberal centre’ in the near term you risk defining yourself as closed off to the Reform voters you need to win back. The Tories would have to appear quite a drastically different party, for instance backtrack on leaving the ECHR and that would send a signal to Reform voters,” James Johnson of pollsters JL Partners said.
“They may be able to win some of the liberal centrists back in a couple of years, but they have to get their base back first. Before the 2024 election the voters that had switched from Conservative to Labour made it clear they were done with the Tories, but I am not seeing that with these Reform voters. The Tories can yet win them back, but it probably needs Reform to make big unforced errors,” he added.
‘Jenrick is Farage’s problem now’
The Conservatives hope Farage’s defectors will prove to be an unruly bunch of individualists who can’t maintain unity in the run-up to the general election. There is some jostling already, according to a Reform insider.
“There are noses out of joint by Rob [Jenrick] joining; people who have defected relatively recently aren’t the newest, freshest kid on the block anymore,” the Reform source said.
“Has Rob [Jenrick] got leadership ambitions? I’m wondering when, not if,” another party source added.
Other Tories warned Farage he’s hosting a cuckoo’s egg who will cause more problems than he solves. “Jenrick never told us what he was doing- articles, broadcasts, policy positions. He’s Nigel’s problem now,” a Tory aide quipped.
If some of Reform’s MPs have had their feathers ruffled by Jenrick joining, the party’s leader isn’t one of them (Photo: Carl Court/Getty)A third member of the Shadow Cabinet said Jenrick’s male staff, who had run his Tory leadership campaign and advised him afterwards are not team players. “I predict it will all go wrong. Rob’s angry boys work for Rob and Rob alone. They are not going to play nicely with Reform people. They’re going to set them on fire.”
One of Jenrick’s advisors responded sarcastically. “Maybe Kemi should send us to our rooms.”
But if some of Reform’s MPs have had their feathers ruffled by Jenrick joining, the party’s leader isn’t one of them. “There’s a lot of stuff that Nigel doesn’t really like doing, like dealing with donors. So having Rob on board as a big name who can do outreach to these people is something that has been underestimated. Nigel has been super-happy because now he has someone else he can get someone else to do this stuff,” a Reform source said.
“Nigel will still want to do all the glamorous stuff; he’s more of a president than a prime minister. I think Jenrick will be more of a prime minister, or chairman to chief executive,” the source added.
‘Nadim? Are they on drugs?’
Both Reform and Tory sources concede not all defections are of equal merit and require handling in different ways. Braverman’s defection did not surprise the Tories who had regarded the twice-sacked Cabinet minister as a loose cannon. It was a reputation Reform was aware of, too, having rebuffed her earlier attempts to join.
“We didn’t want Suella in a small group because she is difficult to manage. So, her joining now is different to her joining a group of four in Parliament. It’s a combustible team and you don’t want to take the most combustible people too early,” a Reform source said.
Nadim Zahawi, who served as a stopgap chancellor for two months under former Tory Prime Minister Boris Johnson, is in a separate category. According to Tory sources, having “begged via multiple channels” Badenoch for a peerage and been refused, Zahawi went off in a huff.
Former Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi defected to Reform UK, as Tories claim the move came after he was rebuffed for a peerage (Photo: David Levenson/Getty Images)Schadenfreude and glee characterised the response from senior Tories. “Nadim? Are they on drugs? They’re touting him like they’ve got Nigel Lawson. Chancellor?! It was a holiday job,” a Shadow Cabinet minister said.
There also already appears to be some buyer’s regret in Reform. “We shouldn’t have taken Nadim. He is completely untrustworthy,” as one Reform member put it, referring to an ethics inquiry which found a failure to disclose that HMRC was investigating his taxes while he was chancellor. Zahawi said at the time it was a careless mistake.
Another senior Reform figure suggested the party should focus on hiring businesspeople with experience running large organisations other than more ex-politicians, for fear of looking like a party entirely made up of former Tories.
“Reform is starting to sound more like RE-form, like mechanically rendered meat. They’re treating the British public like school children, saying to them ‘You didn’t like your chicken nugget in a smiley face shape, so we’re going to reshape it as a dinosaur. It’s a totally different dish’,” a second Shadow Cabinet minister said.
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Sources said Farage’s next phase will be to boost his party with businesspeople to offset the wave of Tories. A speech in Birmingham next month will also aim to make his ideological differences with the Conservatives clear too.
It’s not just the Tories who hope Farage will come unstuck. Labour, too, hopes discipline and incoherence will be Farage’s undoing, especially with the selection of the academic Matthew Goodwin as Reform’s candidate in the Greater Manchester by-election.
Endorsed by far-right rabble rouser Tommy Robinson on Friday, Goodwin believes in stopping migration into the UK from Islamic nations. “Reform have made a mistake choosing someone quite so divisive. He is their brand on steroids,” a Cabinet minister said.
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