{"id":89131,"date":"2026-01-13T07:23:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T07:23:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=89131"},"modified":"2026-01-13T07:23:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T07:23:12","slug":"zahawi-reveals-some-truths-about-reform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2026\/01\/13\/zahawi-reveals-some-truths-about-reform\/","title":{"rendered":"Zahawi reveals some truths about Reform"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/uk-news\/2026\/jan\/12\/former-tory-chancellor-nadhim-zahawi-defects-to-reform-uk\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Guardian has reported<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Nadhim Zahawi was rejected for a peerage by the\u00a0Conservatives\u00a0just weeks before he defected to Reform UK, Tory sources have told the Guardian.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The former chancellor asked Kemi Badenoch\u2019s top team for a seat in the House of Lords but was rebuffed because he had been\u00a0sacked as Tory chair in 2023\u00a0over his tax affairs.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div id=\"sign-in-gate\">I would have expected nothing less: those who have to make multi-million-pound tax settlements do not serve a place in the Lords.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>But then, as the Guardian noted:<\/div>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Zahawi was announced on Monday as Reform\u2019s newest recruit \u2013 and the most senior former Tory to join it \u2013 as the former MP claimed Britain was on the brink of \u201ccivil unrest\u201d and only a government led by\u00a0Nigel Farage\u00a0could prevent it.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>This is despite Zahawi <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/newsletter\/london-playbook\/london-playbook-pm-shout-out-to-my-x\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">having noted on Twitter<\/a> in 2015:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I\u2019m not British Born Mr @Nigel_Farage I am as British as u r. Yr comments r offensive&amp;racist. I wld b frightened 2live in country run by U.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>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?<\/p>\n<p>It is clear that Zahawi and Farage have revealed some truths that are not usually spoken about Reform. These are that:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Reform does not give a damn about tax abuse or those who might commit it.<\/li>\n<li>Reform does not care about standards of good governance.<\/li>\n<li>Reform is selectively racist: if you are wealthy, you can be forgiven for being a migrant, and pretty much anything else.<\/li>\n<li>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.<\/li>\n<li>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.<\/li>\n<li>Reform is, therefore, an answer to none of the problems the UK has.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As the Guardian has reported: Nadhim Zahawi was rejected for a peerage by the\u00a0Conservatives\u00a0just weeks before he defected to Reform UK, Tory sources have told<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2026\/01\/13\/zahawi-reveals-some-truths-about-reform\/\"><em> Read the full article&#8230;<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[96,14,16,203,224,106,214],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conservatives","category-corruption","category-ethics","category-fascism","category-neoliberalism","category-politics","category-reform"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89131"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89141,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89131\/revisions\/89141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}