The prime minister mocked Reform and the Tories over Nadhim Zahawi’s defection
Keir Starmer used PMQs today to mock Reform UK and the Conservatives over former Tory chancellor Nadhim Zahawi’s defection earlier this week.
Zahawi, who was sacked from his role as chair of the Conservative Party over failing to pay the right amount of tax and lost his seat in May 2024, has joined Reform, in a move that has been branded by some as “pure political opportunism”.
At PMQs today, Starmer took a swipe at Kemi Badenoch saying that her MPs are queuing up to join “the member for Clacton’s (Nigel Farage’s) laundry service of disgraced Tory politicians”.
Following a visit to Ikea in Croydon yesterday, the prime minister also joked that Ikea workers had shown him “their new prototype, the Ikea shadow cabinet”.
He then said: “The trouble is, nobody wants to buy it. It’s mainly constructed from dead wood and every time you lose a nut it defects to Reform.”
Zahawi claimed that he gave advice to Badenoch on how to save the Tory party before he defected to Reform.
In a dig at Zahawi’s tax practices, Starmer said: “I understand, Mr. Speaker, that she’s taking advice on change. She had Nadhim Zahawi in to ask his advice, how to change and how to save her party. Please don’t tell me she listened to his accountant.”
“The next day after the advice he jumped ship to Reform, the 23rd former Tory MP to do so. I don’t know which is more pitiful – the flood of former Tory MPs deserting her sinking ship or the Reform Party so desperate to launder any old failed Tory politician,” Starmer added.
The prime minister also mocked figures in Reform’s ranks, including their newly-selected candidate for London mayor Laila Cunningham.
Starmer said: “What’s obvious about London and Reform is they’ve got a candidate for mayor who doesn’t like London. A new Tory recruit who struggled to pay his taxes in this country, and a leader who spends more time in France than in his constituency.”
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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