Suella Braverman has become the latest prominent Conservative politician to jump ship and join Reform UK.
The former home secretary has been unveiled by Nigel Farage as another high-profile catch, at an event launching Veterans for Reform.
Ms Braverman, who served in government under prime ministers Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, and Rishi Sunak, announced that she had resigned the Conservative whip to huge cheers from the veterans gathered for the event.
“I feel like I’ve come home,” she said. “Because I believe that a better future is possible for us, I am joining Reform UK.”
Ms Braverman who served in the Home Office at the same time as Robert Jenrick – who defected to the party on 15 January – is now the party’s eighth MP.
Explaining her decision, Ms Braverman said: “Loyalty demands honesty and honesty compels me to say this: today Britain is indeed broken. She is suffering. She is not well.
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“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.”
She pointed to her calls to leave the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) while in government, and accused the Tories of having “utterly failed to do the right thing for the British people”.
She said her former party had “great speeches, good slogans… but when the cameras are off, when the doors are shut, and when they’re sat behind that table making difficult decisions for the country, they fold”.
She added: “When push comes to shove, they go AWOL. No courage, no backbone, no resolve.”
Ms Braverman also hit out at the current Tory party, saying its commitment to leave the ECHR is a lie.
She added: “I’m calling time on Tory lies. I’m calling time on a party that keeps making promises with zero intention of keeping them.”
Championing Reform, Ms Braverman said: “There is only one man in British politics who has been courageously consistent for his country, and that man is Nigel Farage.
“He’s not backed down in the face of vicious onslaughts, vicious vitriol, and backlash. Nigel Farage is right and the British people are backing him.”
Ms Braverman concluded her speech by saying it is “the honour of my life” to defect to Reform.
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