Outsider politics, inside men: Reform UK’s defection strategy and the Tories’ struggle to compete

Suella Braverman’s defection to Reform UK on Monday adds yet another name to the steadily growing list of Tory MPs crossing over to Nigel Farage’s party. It also creates a striking crossroads moment: there are now more former Conservative MPs inside Reform than MPs originally elected under the Reform banner in 2024. 

For a party branding itself as the agent of national renewal, Reform’s intake of former ministers comes with a paradox. Can those who once held power credibly promise to overhaul the system they helped shape? For now, voters appear unbothered. Farage dominates Reform’s public profile so completely that such contradictions are not yet centre stage. Alongside his newly acquired ex‑Tory colleagues, he represents yet another example of a long‑standing political insider re‑emerging as a self‑proclaimed outsider. This pattern of political reinvention has not hindered similar right‑wing, anti‑immigration movements abroad: Jair Bolsonaro was a congressman for 27 years before winning a presidential campaign against the “political elite”. Viktor Orbán has been Hungary’s prime minister for over a decade while claiming to resist the “establishment”.  

As long as the message is one of change, international examples suggest that political communication allows a wide enough gap between narrative and biography for such contradictions to go largely unnoticed. Voters disillusioned with the political class appear willing to overlook a candidate’s past if the rhetoric promises disruption. The contradiction between a candidate’s political past and the promise of transformation has become not a liability, but a feature of modern populism. 

This phenomenon becomes even less surprising when contrasted with the Conservatives’ increasingly fraught attempts to compete with Reform. Their response to Braverman’s departure, widely criticised for weaponising her personal circumstances and mental health struggles, landed as both unprofessional and counterproductive, with Tory peer Stewart Jackson arguing that the statement had “cost them a few thousand votes”. For everyone working in political communications, the episode serves as a warning: even as standards in public discourse appear to be plummeting, respect for personal circumstances and health remains fundamental and should be kept away from organisational attacks.  

This ultimately points to the Conservatives’ broader strategic bind. Populist, sharp‑edged cultural messaging, once considered a route to consolidating the right, now seems to be working against them. Reform has already claimed the voters most motivated by cultural and immigration issues, leaving the Conservatives shouting into an echo chamber largely emptied of its intended audience. The alternative would be a pivot back to a centre‑right, policy‑driven identity, focusing on economic credibility, housing, infrastructure, and the long‑term issues Reform rarely addresses. For now, however, there seems to be little appetite for rebuilding as a credible centre‑right alternative rather than trying to be Reform, even as Reform proves far better at being itself.