Former UK interior minister Suella Braverman and Nigel Farage, leader of Reform UK, at a press conference in London on January 26, 2026. ISABEL INFANTES / REUTERS
Three high-profile defections in less than three weeks from the Conservative Party to Reform UK: In the United Kingdom, the right is shifting ever more rapidly toward the far right. On Monday, January 26, Suella Braverman, who served as interior minister under both Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, confirmed that she was giving up her Tory party membership to join Nigel Farage’s anti-immigration movement. She follows in the footsteps of Robert Jenrick, Sunak’s former secretary of state for migration, who crossed the Rubicon on January 15, and Nadhim Zahawi, who briefly served as Boris Johnson’s chancellor of the Exchequer, and made the switch three days earlier. In total, around 20 current and former Conservative officials have moved to the far right since 2024.
“I feel like I’ve come home!” said Braverman during a joint press conference with Farage in central London. “I share that love for that country (…) but Britain is indeed broken (…). Immigration is out of control (…) people do not feel safe, our youngsters are leaving the country,” the MP added. Her defection came as little surprise, given how she had positioned herself on the right of the Conservative Party in recent years. In the fall of 2023, she warned of a “hurricane” of migrants about to hit British shores and unapologetically championed the plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda, a policy initiated by Johnson.
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