Nigel Farage could regret Zahawi joining Reform Party

Nigel Farage would be well advised to take the gushing vow of loyalty to him from Reform’s latest Tory defector, Nadhim Zahawi, with a large pinch of salt. “Britain needs Nigel Farage as prime minister,” declared smiling Zahawi in a joint press conference with the Reform leader. It sounded convincing. Self-made multimillionaire Zahawi is good at that. Whether he can be believed is another matter – as I know from personal experience. He had barely been unveiled as Reform’s newest Conservative recruit when it was discovered that 10 years ago the same Zahawi called Farage “racist” and said he would be “frightened to live in a country” run by him.

In addition, the Tories claimed Zahawi had recently “begged” Kemi Badenoch for a peerage only to be turned down: the implication being that he joined Farage’s bandwagon in a fit of pique. Zahawi denied “begging” for a Lords seat — though conspicuously failed to deny discussing the matter with his old party. I know who I believe. Writing in The Independent in July 2022, I was the journalist who broke the first story concerning the HMRC investigation into Zahawi’s tax affairs that led to him being fired as Conservative chair six months later.

He used every trick in the book — and a few more — to try to gag us. He texted me, falsely stating there was “no such investigation” into his tax affairs; he had paid “all due taxes and obeyed all financial rules and regulations”. When we refused to let the matter drop, he texted again, threatening “legal action — 100 per cent” if we published the story. When we did so, he had the gall to claim he was the victim of a “smear”. Of course, he never did sue. How could he? It was all true. Following further disclosures, an official report into Zahawi’s tax affairs by Whitehall’s ethics adviser Sir Laurie Magnus was damning. It found him guilty of a “serious breach” of the ministerial ethics code.

He had failed to inform no less than three prime ministers, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, that he was under investigation by HMRC, as he should have done. Nor had he owned up to — in line with Whitehall rules — having paid a tax penalty to settle the matter, which reportedly involved £17m held in an offshore account in Gibraltar linked to Zahawi’s family. It later transpired that Zahawi paid the tax penalty in August 2022 — just one month after his heated denials to The Independent. When, following Sir Laurie’s ruling, Zahawi was dismissed as Tory chair in January 2023, it seemed like the end of his career. His reputation in tatters, he did not bother to attempt to retain his Stratford-upon-Avon seat in the 2024 election.

A political pollster by trade, he could see the writing on the wall: the Lib Dems won it with a thumping 7,000 majority. However, it turns out that Zahawi espied a cushier path back to Westminster, bypassing the pesky electorate by securing a peerage from Badenoch. Doubtless, he pledged his loyalty to her. But the Conservative leader was having none of it. She knew all about his form.

Even by the low standards of political fidelity, Zahawi’s record stands out as a beacon of fickle self-interest. As one of Boris Johnson’s most devoted supporters, it was only natural that when Rishi Sunak resigned as chancellor in July 2022, triggering a crisis in Johnson’s regime, he turned to Zahawi to rescue him. He gave him the plum vacant post of chancellor. However, a mere two days later, when other ministers resigned, pushing Johnson to the brink, Zahawi joined them and said Boris must go.

Two days after that, Zahawi launched his own leadership challenge to replace Johnson in No 10. When that flopped, he tied his colours to Liz Truss’s mast and, you guessed it, was given a job in her administration. In another credulous somersault, when Truss’s prime ministership ended in disaster, Zahawi called for Johnson to be restored to Downing St.