LONDON: Former British finance minister Nadhim Zahawi defected to Nigel Farage’s right-wing Reform UK party from the Conservative Party on Monday, saying the country was broken and needed Farage as prime minister to fix it. Zahawi, who had a short spell in charge of the nation’s finances under former prime minister Boris Johnson in 2022, becomes the latest in a long line of former Conservatives to switch to Farage’s populist Reform UK.

Zahawi is the most senior former Conservative to join Nigel Farage’s party

Born to a Kurdish family in Iraq, Nadhim Zahawi rose to prominence first as Boris Johnson’s vaccines minister