Zahawi tried, and failed, to get a peerage from Badenoch before defecting to Reform UK, Tory sources claim
Nadhim Zahawi approached Kemi Badenoch’s team about trying to become a Tory peer – only to defect to Reform UK after being told he would not get one, Pippa Crerar reports.
❤️🔥Tory sources confirm that Nadhim Zahawi made approaches to senior members of Kemi Badenoch’s team about getting a peerage just weeks before defecting to Reform UK – but was turned down.
Tory source: “Nadhim asked for a peerage several times. Given he was sacked for his dodgy tax affairs, this was never going to happen. His defection tells you everything you need to know about Reform being a repository for disgraced politicians.”
The Telegraph’s Tony Diver has been given the same briefing.
Nadhim Zahawi was denied a Conservative peerage weeks before he defected to Reform, Tory sources claim.
Zahawi said to have made “multiple approaches” in late 2024, asking to be on the most recent political peerages list.
“We were very clear he wasn’t going to get one.”
Zahawi is said to have made approaches in person and on the phone to senior members of Kemi Badenoch’s team. Tories say he was told that he was “not suitable” for elevation because of his resignation from the Sunak cabinet over unpaid tax.
Zahawi does not dispute that he discussed a peerage, but says he has a “message from the top that they want to look at elevating me” and said he was told he would be contacted again about it in 2026.
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Updated at 09.54 EST
Key events
2m ago
Kendall defends government being on X as means of communicating with voters – but says its use kept under review
8m ago
Kendall criticises Reform UK for wanting to repeal Online Safety Act
10m ago
Kendall says government will make supplying nudification apps illegal
13m ago
Kendall says Ofcom can act against X before its investigation is over
20m ago
Kendall says law making creation of nonconsensual, intimate images illegal to brought into force from this week
25m ago
Liz Kendall say non-consensual, sexual material on X is ‘vile’, illegal and sometimes child abuse
51m ago
What commentators are saying about Zahawi defection
1h ago
Peers elect former Tory cabinet minister Michael Forsyth as Lord Speaker
2h ago
Labour MP says Grok AI still being used to create degrading images
2h ago
Zahawi explains why he no longer stands by 2015 tweet saying he would be ‘frightened’ to live in UK run by Farage
3h ago
Zahawi tried, and failed, to get a peerage from Badenoch before defecting to Reform UK, Tory sources claim
3h ago
Nadhim Zahawi’s defection – snap verdict
4h ago
Tories say Reform UK becoming party for ‘has-been politicians looking for next gravy train’
4h ago
Reform UK becoming ‘retirement home for disgraced former Conservative ministers’, say Lib Dems
4h ago
Labour says Zahawi defection shows Reform UK ‘has no shame’
4h ago
Zahawi calls for police chief to be sacked over Maccabi fans ban, claiming West Midlands police gave in to ‘Islamist thugs’
5h ago
Zahawi claims that accusations of racism, directed at Farage and others, are now so widespread it’s become ‘joke’
5h ago
Farage says ‘tragedy of Brexit is we didn’t do it’
5h ago
Farage says he would not pull back any British military deployments at eastern border of Nato territory
5h ago
Farage dismisses report claiming Trump has lost faith in him
5h ago
Zahawi insults journalist who asks why he is joining party that platformed US adviser who suggested vaccines caused king’s cancer
6h ago
Farage plays down significance of Zahawi being sacked over tax affairs when he was in cabinet
6h ago
Zahawi says Tories failed to overturn Blair’s ‘constitutional vandalism’, and claims Reform will take on ‘unelected bureaucracy’
6h ago
Zahawi claims that UK is ‘sick’ as he explains his defection
6h ago
Former Tory chancellor Nadhim Zahawi defects to Reform UK
6h ago
What Ofcom says about inquiry into ‘deeply concerning’ reports into Grok AI potentially creating ‘child sexual abuse material’
6h ago
Ofcom to launch formal investigation into X’s Grok AI tool and its sexualisted images content
6h ago
Sadiq Khan revives speculation he won’t stand for further term as London mayor
7h ago
Met chief Mark Rowley dismisses Reform UK claim that London getting less safe
7h ago
Peter Kyle says Ofcom should use powers ‘to full extent of law’ on X’s sexualised AI images ahead of Commons statement
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Kendall concluded:
I believe, and the government believes, AI is a transformative technology which has the power and potential to bring around extraordinary and welcome change, creating jobs and growth, diagnosing and treating diseases, helping children learn at school, tackling climate change and so much more besides.
But, in order to seize these opportunities, people must feel confident that they and their children are safe online and that AI is not used for destructive and abusive ends.
Many tech companies want to and are acting responsibly, but where they do not, we must and we will act. Innovation should serve humanity, not degrade it.
So we’ll leave no stone unturned in our determination to stamp out these demeaning, degrading and illegal images.
If that means strengthening the existing laws, we are prepared to do so because this government stands on the side of decency.
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Updated at 12.14 EST
Kendall defends government being on X as means of communicating with voters – but says its use kept under review
Kendall said she understood why many people want the government to stop using X.
It would keep this under review, she said.
But she said there are 19 million X users in the UK, more than a quarter of whom say they use it as a primary source of news.
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Kendall criticises Reform UK for wanting to repeal Online Safety Act
Kendall challenged opposition MPs to back the government’s stance on X.
And, with just one Reform UK MP sitting in the chamber, she said that if Reform continued to call for the Online Safety Act to be reapealed, they would be “shamefully supporting scrapping protections that keep women and children safe”.
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Kendall says government will make supplying nudification apps illegal
And Kendall said she could confirm the government would use the crime and policing bill, which is currently going through Parliament, to criminalise nudification apps.
This new criminal offence will make it illegal for companies to supply tools designed to create non-consensual intimate images, targetting the problem at its source.
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Kendall says Ofcom can act against X before its investigation is over
Kendall said that Ofcom has announced an investigation into X.
She said that Ofcom should set out a timetable for the investigation “as soon as possible”.
But, she said, Ofcom did not have to wait until it was over before it acted. “They can choose to act sooner to ensure this abhorrent and illegal material cannot be shared on their platform,” she said. And she said Ofcom would have government support “to use the full powers which parliament has given them.
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Kendall says law making creation of nonconsensual, intimate images illegal to brought into force from this week
Kendall says the decision by X last week to restrict the Grok AI deepfake tool to subscribers does not go anywhere near far enough.
She goes on:
Under the Online Safety Act, sharing intimate images without someone’s consent, or threatening to share them, including images of people in their underwear, is a criminal offence for individuals and for platforms.
My predecessor [Peter Kyle] rightly made this a priority offence, so services have to take proactive action to stop this content from appearing in the first place.
The Data Act, passed last year, made it a criminal offence to create or request the creation of nonconsensual and intimate images.
And today I can announce to the house that this offence will be brought into force this week, and that I will make it a priority offence in the Online Safety Act.
This means individuals are committing a criminal offence if they create or seek to create such content, including on X. And anyone who does this should expect to face the full extent of the law.
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Updated at 11.57 EST
Liz Kendall say non-consensual, sexual material on X is ‘vile’, illegal and sometimes child abuse
Liz Kendall, the technology secretary, is making her statement to MPs about sexualised deepfake images on X.
She says the content being circulated is “vile”. She goes on:
In recent days the Grok AI tool on the social media platform X has been used to create and share degrading, non-consensual, sexual, intimate deepfakes.
The content which has circulated on X is vile. It’s not just an affront to decent society. It is illegal.
The Internet Watch Foundation reports criminal imagery of children as young as 11, including girls sexualised and topless.
This is child sexual abuse.
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The Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran says they are giving up X.
My time on X has come to an end.
I can’t sleep knowing that I’m leading traffic to a site that actively enables sexual exploitation of women and children.
Instead, you can find me on Bluesky, Facebook and Instagram. Links below. See you there
Many other MPs have already given up posting on X. But not the government.
In her Commons statement on X, which will start in about half an hour, Liz Kendall, the technology secretary, is due to speak about this. She will mostly be talking about the Ofcom inquiry.
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Updated at 11.33 EST
What commentators are saying about Zahawi defection
A reader asks:
@andrew, surely the continuing flow of Boris-era Tories to Reform is a good thing for the current conservative party? It’s removing a number of personalities that the general public and voters have a low opinion of, as they will forever be tied to the 12 years of Tory government, plus many are linked to personal scandal. This makes it much easier for Kemi et al to run with the whole “we are a different party to Boris/Liz/Rishi” line. Has anyone done any polling on how this is playing with potential Tory voters – do these defections make them more or less likely to switch their vote from Tory to Reform?
I am not aware of any specific polling on this. But there has been an interesting debate about this online today involving commentators and academics.
Keiran Pedley from the polling company Ipsos argues that defections like Zahawi’s make it easier for Labour to depict Reform UK as a new version of the Tory party.
Re Zahawi. On the one hand Reform will want people in parliament that can credibly lead government departments. But yet another former Tory cabinet minister joining their ranks surely only boosts Labour’s claim that Reform are the Tory party rebranded and led by Nigel Farage.
Pedley’s argument is fair as far as it goes. But I don’t think these defections really make it easier for Kemi Badenoch to argue that her party has changed; it might have been different if she had expelled all the Johnsonites and Trussites, but she didn’t (because they were the people who elected her).
But Jane Green, the academic who runs the British Election Study, disagrees with Pedley. She says:
I‘ve long disagreed with view that Con>Reform defections are somehow toxic for Reform. I doubt many know Zahawi’s controversies. I think its much more about (powerfully, frankly) signalling and reconfirming that Reform has become a natural home for disgruntled Tories, as has been true since 2024.
Here are comments from two political journalists who agree.
From Patrick Maguire from the Times
99 per cent of analysis I’m reading about Zahawi is way too involved. To the extent people pay attention to this at all, it will be to note that Reform are doing well and hear someone else say Farage will/can be PM. Also: are Reform the same old Tories or something new and scary?
Plus psephologically they surely need a bit of they-can’t-be-that-bad-he-used-to-be-chancellor-they’re-just-the-Tories-now-I-may-as-well-vote-for-him to grow beyond 30 per cent consistently
From Matthew Holehouse from the Economist
The overriding essay question that Reform needs to answer in the next three years is: if you are on the right and hate Keir Starmer, which of a) Reform UK or b) The Tories is the bigger, stronger, more viable vehicle for change? In many ways it is a basic issue of showing mass and velocity
Reform as the Strong Horse Theory of Politics en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Str…
In some ways, the defection of people who previously declared they hated nasty Farage, but now say that Farage is the only show in town and the Tories are toast, could not be more helpful for Farage; because that is the logic by which the rump Conservative vote will be persuaded to defect
And here are some other points about the defection.
From Richard Spencer, a Times foreign affairs specialist
Is it insensitive to point out that Nadim Zahawi, a Kurdish Iraqi refugee, is defecting to a party which made its name promising to keep Kurdish Iraqis out of the country? (They were a significant proportion of people arriving by boat 2018-24). That’s British politics!
From James Heale from the Spectator
An obvious point but Nadhim Zahawi yet another onetime big Boris backer signing up to Reform, after Nadine Dorries, Jake Berry, Jonathan Gullis, Lee Anderson, Andrea Jenkyns, Ross Thomson
A well known SW1 politico messages re Zahawi: “this is the first reform defection that has HIT THE CHATS”
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Peers elect former Tory cabinet minister Michael Forsyth as Lord Speaker
Michael Forsyth, the former Tory cabinet minister, has been elected as the new Lord Speaker. He got 56.3% of the vote, beating Deborah Bull, a crossbencher and former artistic director of the Royal Opera House.
Forsyth got 383 votes and Bull got 297. Of the 814 peers eligble to vote, 680 (83.5%) participated. Forsyth, who joined the Lords in 1999 and who has been chair of the Lords economic affairs committee and chair of the association of Conservative peers, replaces Lord McFall, a former Labour MP.
Forsyth said:
I would like to thank all my supporters for the trust and confidence they have shown in me. I am grateful too to my opponent Baroness Bull who ran a vigorous, courteous, and friendly campaign.
I would also like to pay tribute to Lord McFall the outgoing Lord Speaker. He has made great strides in improving the governance of the House and the accountability of the administration to members. I intend to build on that work as chair of the House of Lords Commission and Lord Speaker.
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At the Downing Street lobby briefing this morning, the PM’s spokesperson did not deny the reports sayngt he EU is demanding guarantees the UK will compensate the bloc if a future government reneges on the Brexit “reset” agreement Keir Starmer is currently negotiating.
This was “pure speculation”, the spokesperson said. (Normally, that means something is true.)
The spokesperson added:
More broadly, termination clauses including financial commitments are standard practice in international treaties. I’d remind you that this government was elected on a manifesto to reset the UK’s relationship with the EU, including a food and drink deal, which will break down barriers to trade. It’s indisputable since Brexit there’s been a 21% drop in exports and 7% drop in imports that have been hugely damaging for UK businesses.
At his press conference earlier Nigel Farage said he was not convinced this reset deal would ever be agreed. (See 12.10pm.)
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Labour MP says Grok AI still being used to create degrading images
Helena Horton
Helena Horton is a Guardian reporter.
Jess Asato, a Labour MP and campaigner against AI nudification, said the abuse was still happening to her on X as of this morning.
She said explicit and degrading images were being created using the Grok app – which is also available separately from X – and other AI apps and posted on X, because she was speaking against Musk’s platform. She said:
It’s still happening to me and being posted on X because I speak up about it.
Thankfully it’s just bikinis, no one has properly nudified me yet. Just this morning someone has made me of a tradwife with a massive pregnant tummy. It’s like they’re saying, this is where you should be, this is your role, you should be a baby birthing machine. This has disturbed me weirdly more than the bikini pictures.
The MP added that “thousands of people” had sent hateful messages and AI-augmented images of her as a result of her campaign to ban AI nudification.
She added:
There are users themselves telling me they are still able to create images of women nudified and they don’t necessarily have to pay for it. So many people are able to do it without paying, on the Grok app. We need the nudification to stop. There are thousands of these apps still generating this content. Women are not consenting to being digitally stripped.
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The latest edition of our Politics Weekly podcast is out. It features Pippa Crerar and Kiran Stacey talking about the Ofcom investigation into Grok AI, and Nadhim Zahawi’s defection to Reform UK.
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Zahawi explains why he no longer stands by 2015 tweet saying he would be ‘frightened’ to live in UK run by Farage
The Green party says Nadhim Zahawi has joined Reform UK for opportunist reasons. This is from the Green MP Ellie Chowns.
Another discredited Conservative has landed on the shores of Reform UK. Nadhim Zahawi is the chancellor turned chancer – trying his luck with Nigel Farage’s outfit having completely discredited himself in the Conservative party.
Is this the same Mr Zahawi that said of Nigel Farage, your comments are offensive and racist and I would be frightened to live in a country run by you? Indeed, it would appear it is.
Chowns was referring to this tweet from Zahawi, from almost 11 years ago.
Zahawi tweet Photograph: X
At the news conference earlier, Katherine Forster from GB News asked Zahawi about this tweet. Zahawi replied:
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, proud of this country, worked hard for this country, paid millions of pounds in taxes in this country, invested in the country, I wouldn’t be sitting next to him, and I think he wouldn’t be sitting next to me either.
UPDATE: Sunder Katwala from the British Future thinktank has posted a useful thread explaining the Farage policy that prompted Zahawi’s tweet in 2015 – and why Farage is essentially adopting the same position (on race discrimination laws) now.
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Updated at 11.37 EST
Zahawi tried, and failed, to get a peerage from Badenoch before defecting to Reform UK, Tory sources claim
Nadhim Zahawi approached Kemi Badenoch’s team about trying to become a Tory peer – only to defect to Reform UK after being told he would not get one, Pippa Crerar reports.
❤️🔥Tory sources confirm that Nadhim Zahawi made approaches to senior members of Kemi Badenoch’s team about getting a peerage just weeks before defecting to Reform UK – but was turned down.
Tory source: “Nadhim asked for a peerage several times. Given he was sacked for his dodgy tax affairs, this was never going to happen. His defection tells you everything you need to know about Reform being a repository for disgraced politicians.”
The Telegraph’s Tony Diver has been given the same briefing.
Nadhim Zahawi was denied a Conservative peerage weeks before he defected to Reform, Tory sources claim.
Zahawi said to have made “multiple approaches” in late 2024, asking to be on the most recent political peerages list.
“We were very clear he wasn’t going to get one.”
Zahawi is said to have made approaches in person and on the phone to senior members of Kemi Badenoch’s team. Tories say he was told that he was “not suitable” for elevation because of his resignation from the Sunak cabinet over unpaid tax.
Zahawi does not dispute that he discussed a peerage, but says he has a “message from the top that they want to look at elevating me” and said he was told he would be contacted again about it in 2026.
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Updated at 09.54 EST
Nadhim Zahawi’s defection – snap verdict
Tory defections are becoming relatively commonplace now, but there was still something striking about Nigel Farage being able to unveil Nadhim Zahawi as a new recruit this morning. There are now at least 22 former Tory MPs in Reform UK (there is a list of 20 of them here, plus Ben Bradley, plus Zahawi), and that is not including the two former Tory MPs who are now Reform UK MPs (Lee Anderson and Danny Kruger).
Almost without exception, recruits from the Tories to Farage have all come from the more shifty, opportunist wing of the party (other adjectives are available) and Zahawi, who called on Boris Johnson to quit only 24 hours after agreeing to serve him loyally as chancellor and who was later sacked from cabinet by Rishi Sunak over an ethics breach, won’t do anything to change the Lib Dem thesis about what is happening. (See 1.13pm.)
But Zahawi is still technically the most senior person to cross the floor. As vaccines minister during Covid, he established a higher profile than most cabinet minsters. And, above all, his defection implies some sort of snowball effect is underway, and that there is an inevitability about Reform UK eclipsing the Tories.
Farage always insists, and did again this morning, that the two parties are different. And the Conservative party is also happy to claim that the two organisations remain very distinct. But the Tory statement (see 1.23pm) today was a masterclass in wishful thinking. Farage’s party does not support higher welfare spending and higher taxes, with each defection the “one man band” claim becomes a bit weaker, and it is hard to describe Reform UK as has-beens when their polling still looks so encouraging.
But perhaps the debate about whether or not Reform UK will replace the Conservatives as the UK’s party of the right is misframed. Instead, arguably the Tories are regenerating, like Dr Who, with a new name and a new identity, but in other respects just an update on what was there before. Watching the press conference this morning, it was hard to avoid the conclusion that, whatever Farage says, a Reform UK government would heavily infused with Tory DNA.
Zahawi’s defection means the competition for who might be chancellor in a Reform UK government has just opened up. Richard Tice and Zia Yusuf were seen as the lead candidates, but today Zahawi sounded up for a big job.
Or Lord Zahawi, as he may end up. Last week, in an interview with Danny Kruger for the Spectator, Tim Shipman said that Kruger believes Farage might have to appoint 500 new peers to be sure of getting his plans through the upper house. That is a lot of potential peerages for people who have yet to defect. At the press conference this morning, Zahawi did not sound unhappy about the prospect that his name might be on that list.
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