Suella Braverman’s husband set to defect to Farage’s Reform in new scalp from the Conservative Party – and insiders predict she will follow next year_Nhy
Nigel Farage is poised to announce another scalp from the Conservative Party.
Westminster has been awash with speculation that the former home secretary Suella Braverman is poised to defect to Reform UK.
But The Mail on Sunday can reveal that it is her husband, Rael, who is about to be unveiled as the party’s latest recruit. It is understood that Mr Braverman, a businessman known in Tory party ranks, will become a senior campaigner for Mr Farage on defending farmers.
Insiders said the move comes after secret discussions between Mrs Braverman and the Reform leader Mr Farage, and will only intensify speculation that she will be next to cross the floor and join the ranks of Reform.
A senior Tory source said: ‘She will watch and wait for a year or 18 months before deciding to follow suit’, while another said: ‘Suella will definitely be going over at some point.’ Last night Mrs Braverman said: ‘I am not defecting.’
Asked about her husband joining Reform, she told the MoS: ‘This is the 21st century and not the 18th, my husband does not speak for me nor does he control my political affiliations.’
A Reform source said: ‘Nigel thinks he will be a good activist.’
It follows defections last week of former Tory MP Andrea Jenkyns and Boris Johnson’s former adviser Tim Montgomerie, who founded the Conservative Home website.
Suella Braverman’s husband, Rael, is about to be unveiled as the Reform party’s latest recruit
Insiders said the move comes after secret discussions between Mrs Braverman and the Reform leader Nigel Farage
Last week Mr Farage told a gathering of the Westminster establishment at the Spectator’s Parliamentarian of the Year awards: ‘At the next election in 2029 there will be hundreds of newcomers under the Reform UK label’
Last week Mr Farage told a gathering of the Westminster establishment at the Spectator’s Parliamentarian of the Year awards: ‘At the next election in 2029 there will be hundreds of newcomers under the Reform UK label. We are about to witness a political revolution the likes of which you’ve not seen since Labour after the First World War.’
His MPs are increasingly ‘bullish’ about their prospects, after Reform overtook Labour in a voting intention poll for the first time last week, pushing Labour into third place. It prompted Reform chairman Zia Yusuf to declare that the party would win the next general election.
The party’s chief whip Lee Anderson – who defected from the Tories in March – has been meeting Conservatives who lost their seats in the election and urging them to jump ship. ‘He says – it is only going one way from now on,’ one said.
Mr Yusuf has said the party now has 105,000 members in 400 branches. The party is gaining support in Wales ahead of the 2026 Senedd elections, while Ms Jenkyns is seen as having a decent chance of becoming Greater Lincolnshire mayor in May.
Mr Braverman works as a finance manager at Mercedes. He was born in South Africa and moved to the UK as a child. He proposed to Mrs Braverman in 2017 while on holiday in Cyprus.
After they were introduced by mutual friends, she invited him for a day in Parliament. Mr Braverman said last year: ‘As far as first dates go it was certainly an unusual one, but I’ve always been interested in politics so I went along with it.
‘I thoroughly enjoyed it and we agreed to meet up again. We had our first “proper” date a few weeks later and it all took off from there.’
Mrs Braverman has previously said her husband is her biggest supporter, helping her campaign in general elections and for Brexit. While Home Secretary, the MP for Fareham and Waterlooville frequently made headlines for her tough stance on migration, policing and criticism of pro-Palestinian ‘hate marches’.
After the general election, Mrs Braverman said the Tories must woo back Reform voters, and that the party poses an ‘existential threat’ to the Conservatives.
The views are privately echoed by Tories who express doubts about Kemi Badenoch’s leadership. Some are calling on her to ‘pick a fight’ with the centrist ‘One Nation’ Conservative MPs.
