SUELLA Braverman is set to defect from the Tories to Reform UK, reports suggest.
According to The i newspaper, sources from both parties have said the former home secretary is set to make the switch after struggling to gain enough support to run in the Tory leadership contest.
“We expect her to take a tilt at the Tory leadership and then come over to us, perhaps in the autumn around conference time,” a Reform source said. “She’ll fit in well.”
“There’s now so much antagonism towards Suella Braverman among MPs that there is now a generally held view that she will defect,” a senior Tory source said.
However, a spokesperson for Braverman denied the allegations.
“Suella has only recently been elected as a Conservative MP and has been a Conservative Party member for three decades,” they said.
It comes after Braverman engaged in a public spat with Tory leadership favourite Kemi Badenoch after conversations from Rishi Sunak's first shadow cabinet meeting following the General Election were leaked to the media.
Braverman has not been shy about giving her verdict on the reasons behind the Tories humiliating election defeat.
Yet rather than reflecting on the instability wrought on the nation by fierce in-fighting and regular changes of prime minister, Braverman laid blame at the flying of the LGBT+ Pride flag on a government building and the party not being right-wing enough.
