As the Guardian has reported:
Nadhim Zahawi was rejected for a peerage by the Conservatives just weeks before he defected to Reform UK, Tory sources have told the Guardian.
The former chancellor asked Kemi Badenoch's top team for a seat in the House of Lords but was rebuffed because he had been sacked as Tory chair in 2023 over his tax affairs.
Zahawi was announced on Monday as Reform's newest recruit – and the most senior former Tory to join it – as the former MP claimed Britain was on the brink of “civil unrest” and only a government led by Nigel Farage could prevent it.
This is despite Zahawi having noted on Twitter in 2015:
I'm not British Born Mr @Nigel_Farage I am as British as u r. Yr comments r offensive&racist. I wld b frightened 2live in country run by U.
It would seem as though Zahawi has had a considerable change of heart. What could have happened, most especially since it is clear that Zahawi, who arrived in the UK as a child without English as a first language, would appear to be high in the list of those whom Farage would wish to deport from the UK?
It is clear that Zahawi and Farage have revealed some truths that are not usually spoken about Reform. These are that:
- Reform does not give a damn about tax abuse or those who might commit it.
- Reform does not care about standards of good governance.
- Reform is selectively racist: if you are wealthy, you can be forgiven for being a migrant, and pretty much anything else.
- Reform does, therefore, conform to the standards of the Single Transferable Party and is truly neoliberal to its core: it exists to serve the interests of the wealthy alone.
- Reform is racist only with regard to those with lower incomes, but the issue is bigger than that: it does not give a damn about anyone on lower incomes, whoever they are, precisely because it is, at its heart, as biased to those with wealth as the Tories and Labour are.
- Reform is, therefore, an answer to none of the problems the UK has.
There can be no other explanation for the actions of Reform or Zahawi. What they make clear is that Reform is a party of the elite, acting for the elite, and everything else is about finding ways to achieve the goals of those they think to be the elite, always at cost to others. There is, of course, something intensely neo-fascist about that. It is also the destination to which antisocial neoliberalism was always heading, but it's useful to have it made obvious so very clearly.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
There are links to this blog's glossary in the above post that explain technical terms used in it. Follow them for more explanations.
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Buy me a coffee!
Yet again the country is being hurt by Tory factionalism and falling outs – this alone tells us something about just how out of touch those in the supposed ‘natural party of power’ really are. It’s all about ‘me’.
Have we ever been so badly served before in our time?
As for Zahawi himself – all I have to say about him is what Sid Vicious is reported to have said about Keith Richards.
back in the early 90’s (?) I was asked by The Green Party if I wanted to be considered for nomination for a Peerage.
I thought that there were and are much better candidates for nomination so never followed it up.
Interesting to see that there is someone with less self awareness than me
🙂
Reform UK Ltd need these failed Tory ex-ministers because Fa***e’s venture into local government (Kent, Durham, Stafford etc.) has shown that Reform couldn’t run a Clacton whelk stall let alone a whole country. (When was the Dulwich College racist last IN Clacton anyway?)
He’s almost got himself a full Cabinet, composed of ex-Tory MPs.
Lee (30p) Anderson, Andrea (give them the finger) Jenkyns, Danny (Crusader) Kruger, Nadim (stable heating tax dodger, where’s my peerage?) Zahawi, Jake (Tory Chair for 49 days under Truss) Berry, Anne Marie (I’m not a racist) Morris, Sir David (not ALL Welsh Reform leaders are in jail) Jones.
But can all those incompetent and thoroughly nasty egos co-exist with “look-at-ME Donald!” Fascist Fa***e, whose main goal is to oust Keir Starmer from his role as the UK’s Trump “mini-me”, and replace Larry the Downing St cat with a white Burmese one, then get on with wrecking the country for everyone except his wealthy cronies?
Joking aside, these are nasty people, who mean us real harm. We can and will stop them.
Are the MSM awake yet? They do such a good job of smearing decent people, you’d think they would be better at exposing the evil incompetents who currently lead in the polls.
First class, Robert, and 100% correct. Every syllable. They boil my blood and I look forward to the day they are all gone or locked up. I don’t care what happens to them, short of physical harm. A more motley crew of chancers would be hard to invent.
“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, are proud of this country, worked hard in this country, paid millions of pounds in taxes in this country, invested in the country, I wouldn’t be sitting next to him.”
Zahawi forgetting to mention that the only reason he paid millions of pounds in taxes is because HMRC caught him trying to evade it.
And that he has joined the the man he denounced as a Nazi because the Tories wouldn’t give him the peerage he asked for because even they thought that would look bad.
So, by flouncing out, Zahawi has neatly placed himself right alongside Nadine Dorries. That might not be as impressive a position as he thinks it is.
To quote something I heard on the telly, “He is nothing. A fart in the shape of a man.”
Thank you for raising this vital issue, Richard.
Under the surface there is much going on within the upper echelons of Reform UK that goes completely over the heads of ordinary supporters, but which makes sense when seen in the wider picture.
Yes, Reform is, contrary to the view of its supporters, just another iteration of the neoliberal uni-party, but with a sting in the tail.
It is, in my opinion, the public face of a turn in the political stance of the financial sector (which is its main source of funding) well encapsulated in the book:
Alt-Finance: How the City of London Bought Democracy
http://www.plutobooks.com/product/alt-finance/
written by Paris and Edinburgh -based academics well-versed in the mores of contemporary finance.
A perusal of the book’s description lists many themes familiar to the followers of Funding the Future, and I point particularly to how the book looks in particular at “a new authoritarian turn in financialised democracies” that I would argue is now coming into view around us. I have no doubt, for example, that our government’s wish to move to trial without juries is part of this, despite the reason being given that a huge backlog of cases due principally to chronic underfunding and vastly out of date administration systems. The “problem” is actually that juries sometimes don’t give the verdicts or results that governments want, particularly in the matter of trying to manage dissent.
On a broader front the question then arises; why vote for a party which, to be elected relies on your vote, then clearly proceeds to govern and legislate for other interests and entities?
Much to think about.
Thanks. I borrowed your penultimate para and shared it on BlueSky.
Essentially, Reform has just become a refugee camp for extreme Tories, many with decidedly questionable past dealings. Lead by Farage, ex-Tory, Tice, ex-Tory, etc. What they want has been tried and falied, time and time again. And of course, Nigel loves a wealthy foreigner, especially those that will help finance his lifestyle.
Reform, a ‘retirement home for disgraced former Conservative ministers’
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/19-tories-join-reform-farages-36537952
The politics of these extremists was rejected by voters, including Tory supporters, but now Reform lead the polls. Some people will never learn. Cut off the nose to spite the face, politics.
They use to say that the Tory Party was the Nasty party – they remain that, but Reform is the Hate party, the home of selfish, self interest – the top level of the neoliberal ladder.
Much to agree with