Former home secretary Suella Braverman has resigned from the Conservative Party and joined Reform UK, becoming the latest sitting Tory MP to defect to Nigel Farage’s party.
The move was announced by Farage at a rally for Reform activists in central London. Addressing supporters, Braverman said she had ended her 30-year membership of the Conservative Party, adding: “I feel like I’ve come home.”
Braverman is the third Conservative MP to defect to Reform UK this month, following Robert Jenrick and Andrew Rosindell, and the fourth since the 2024 general election. Her defection brings Reform UK’s total number of sitting MPs to eight.
An MP since 2015, Braverman previously served as attorney general under Boris Johnson and became home secretary under Liz Truss in September 2022. She was forced to resign from the role a month later after it emerged she had sent an official document to a Conservative colleague using her personal email account.
Rishi Sunak reappointed Braverman as home secretary just six days later after entering Downing Street, and she went on to become a prominent figure on the right of the Conservative Party. She was dismissed from the post the following year after writing an article accusing the Metropolitan Police of bias in its policing of pro-Palestinian protests in London.
Speaking to Reform supporters, Braverman said Britain was “broken” and facing deep challenges, citing immigration, pressure on public services and concerns about public safety. She said the country faced a choice between what she described as “managed decline” or restoring national strength.