Former Tory home secretary Suella Braverman defects to Reform UK
Appearing at a Reform UK veterans event, Ms Braverman said she had resigned her Conservative Party membership of 30 years.
Former Conservative home secretary Suella Braverman has defected to Reform UK.
She told a Reform UK veterans event in London that she had resigned her Conservative Party membership of 30 years.
Ms Braverman said she would represent her constituency of Fareham and Waterlooville as a Reform UK MP with immediate effect.
It comes on the heels of the high-profile defection from the Conservatives of Robert Jenrick and brings the number of sitting MPs in Nigel Farage’s party to eight.
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. 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.”
