LONDON — Britain’s former finance minister Nadhim Zahawi joined Reform UK Monday, becoming the highest-profile Conservative to defect to Nigel Farage’s right-wing populist party.

The ex-chancellor — unveiled as the surprise guest at a press conference in London — joins a growing list of allies of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson to have jumped ship, alongside the former MPs Nadine Dorries, Andrea Jenkyns, Jake Berry and Ross Thomson.

The Iraqi-born multimillionaire founder of YouGov, a leading polling firm, said he had rejected a “comfortable retirement” away from the headlines to aid Reform’s “glorious revolution.” Farage’s party is leading U.K. opinion polling ahead of the 2029 general election.

Zahawi told journalists he worried that Britain “could tip over into civil unrest.” He added: “I think the country is facing a national emergency on the economy, on our open borders.”

Farage’s newest recruit was sacked as the chair of the Conservative Party in 2023 after an investigation found he had not been sufficiently transparent about his private dealings with Britain’s tax authority.

After leaving frontline politics, Zahawi — who has extensive business relationships in the Middle East — sought backers for an unsuccessful bid to buy the Daily Telegraph newspaper. Reports at the time suggested that he was acting as a middleman between parties including the United Arab Emirates.

Zahawi said Monday of his sacking: “And at some stage HMRC decided that I need to pay more tax on that business, which I did …the mistake I made was not to be specific about the settlement in my declarations to the Cabinet Office.”

The two men have sparred in public life for years. In a 2015 tweet — which was deleted Monday — Zahawi called comments by Farage “offensive and racist” and said he would be “frightened” to live in a country run by him after Farage said it was “ludicrous” that employers could not choose British workers over Polish ones. Zahawi told LBC radio at the time: “It’s a remark that [Nazi minister Joseph] Goebbels would be proud of.”

In 2022 Farage said Zahawi’s elevation to chancellor showed “all he’s interested in is climbing that greasy pole.”

Sitting beside Farage Monday, Zahawi denied that his move was careerist, or that he thought Farage was racist: “If I thought this man sitting next to me in any way had an issue with people of my colour or my background who have come to this country, who have integrated, assimilated, are proud of this country, worked hard in this country, paid millions of pounds in taxes in this country, invested in the country, I wouldn’t be sitting next to him.”

Zahawi was also the U.K. vaccines minister during the Covid-19 pandemic — but deflected what he called “stupid” questions about Aseem Malhotra, an adviser to U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who linked the vaccines to cancer in Britain’s royal family while on stage at Reform’s conference in September.

He declined to answer directly whether he had sought assurances from Farage about Reform’s policy on vaccines. Instead, he said: “I would not be sitting here, nor would Nigel be sitting next to me, if we didn’t agree that we did the right thing for the nation to get the vaccine program to the success that it achieved.” Farage praised “centuries” of British work on vaccines but defended the platform given to Malhotra on free speech grounds.

Zahawi said he defected because he had come to the conclusion that the Conservative Party was a “defunct brand” that could no longer form the next government. He insisted he had been given “no promises, at all” about what role he would play — but did not rule out becoming a Reform MP or peer.

He said he began talks with Farage after Nick Candy, the former Tory donor and property tycoon, was recruited as Reform’s treasurer in December 2024, but only let his Tory membership lapse in December 2025.

Labour Party Chair Anna Turley said the defection showed that “Reform UK has no shame. Nadhim Zahawi is a discredited and disgraced politician who will be forever tied to the Tories’ shameful record of failure in government.”

The Lib Dem MP for Zahawi’s old seat of Stratford-upon-Avon, Manuela Perteghella, added: “Reform is becoming a retirement home for disgraced former Conservative ministers.”

Farage insisted Reform was not the “Conservative Party 2.0,” but said but “our weakness is we lack frontline experience” from people who have run governments. 

He said Zahawi’s role will be outlined in the coming weeks, but added that Zahawi had raised a “huge amount of money” for the Conservative Party. “We’re hoping he’ll do much the same for us,” Farage grinned.