Former home secretary, Suella Braverman recently announced defection to Reform UK on January 26, 2026. The 45-year-old who had been a Conservative Party member for 30 years, shared that she will sit as the MP for Fareham & Waterlooville as a Reform UK member.
“Today I’m announcing that I resign the Conservative whip. I have resigned the Conservative whip and my party membership of 30 years because I believe with my heart and soul that a better future is possible for us. I feel like I have come home” she said at the Reform UK event.
When talking about the "tragedy" with her former alliance, Braverman said that the party had “great speeches, good slogans, but when the cameras are off, when the doors are shut and when they’re sat behind that table making difficult decisions for the country, they fold.”
“There is only one man in British politics who has been courageously consistent for his country. And that man is Nigel Farage," she added. But who is Suella Braverman and is she of Indian-origin? Know more about her here.
Who is Suella Braverman?
Suella Braverman was born as Sue-Ellen Cassiana Fernandes, on April 3, 1980 in Harrow, London. She was named after Sue-Ellen Ewing, the matriarch of the American TV show Dallas, one of her mother's favourite shows. The political representative who has served as home secretary under former Prime Ministers Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss, is of Indian-origin.
She is the daughter of a Hindu Tamil mother Uma and a Goan-origin father Christie Fernandes. Her mother migrated to the UK from Mauritius while her father migrated from Kenya in the 1960s.
Education and career
Braverman completed her law at Queen's College, Cambridge and lived in France to do her master's degree in European and French law at Panthéon-Sorbonne. In May 2015, she was elected as a Conservative Party Member of Parliament for Fareham in south-east England. She worked as the Attorney General between 2020 and 2022 and as the Home Secretary under Sunak and Truss. As per her LinkedIn, she was a barrister at No 5 Chambers from 2008 to 2015 and the co-founder and trustee of the Africa Justice Foundation from 2010 to 2015.
She tied the knot with South African business executive Rael Braverman in February 2019 at the House of Commons and is a mother of two. A Buddhist, Braverman attends the London Buddhist Centre and took her oath in parliament on the 'Dhammapada' scripture of Lord Buddha's sayings.
Move to Reform UK
The Conservative Party MP had long been rumoured to be making the move. Her defection follows that of Robert Jenrick, the former shadow justice secretary. In an interview with The Times, she had said it was time to “unite the right” and that there was “not much difference” between Farage’s policies and those of the Tories.
Her defection brings the number of sitting MPs in Nigel Farage’s party to eight, five of whom are former Tories.
On Monday, Farage described Braverman as “somebody who reached high office in the cabinet, reaching up to the rank of home secretary, but was there during those years and saw the betrayal of both our current and our former military, and now has the courage of her convictions to come stand with me on a Reform platform and speak to you today”.
“26 failed Tory MPs have now joined Reform. You couldn’t trust them then, and you can’t trust them now,” responded The Labour Party in a series of fiery X posts, calling out the former CP members.
