Suella Braverman, the former Home Secretary whose policies culminated in the dumping of the Bibby Stockholm asylum barge on the people of Weymouth and Portland, has now completed a journey that many saw coming for years: she has defected from the Conservatives to Reform UK.
Unveiled by Nigel Farage at the launch of Veterans for Reform, Braverman was greeted with cheers as she announced she had resigned the Conservative whip. “I feel like I’ve come home,” she told the audience, declaring that Britain is “broken” and that only Reform UK offers a route to salvation.
For communities like Weymouth and Portland, those words will ring hollow.
From government power to grievance politics
Braverman served at the heart of government under four Conservative prime ministers: Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak. During her time in office, she became synonymous with an approach to immigration that was deliberately inflammatory, legally dubious and often unworkable in practice.
It was under her watch at the Home Office that the Bibby Stockholm was imposed on Weymouth and Portland — a floating symbol of policy failure and political contempt. The barge was not the product of careful planning or community engagement, but of headline-chasing cruelty: an expensive, unsafe and deeply unpopular stunt that treated both asylum seekers and local residents as collateral damage.
Now Braverman claims Britain is “not well” and that public services are on their knees. She speaks of a nation weakened and humiliated on the world stage. What she does not acknowledge is her own central role in creating the very chaos she now decries.
The politics of blame, not responsibility
In her defection speech, Braverman accused the Conservatives of lacking courage and backbone, claiming they “fold” when faced with difficult decisions. She insisted her loyalty to the party had been exhausted by its failure to deliver, particularly on immigration and its unwillingness to leave the European Court of Human Rights.
Yet this is a familiar pattern. When policies fail, Braverman does not accept responsibility — she looks for a new enemy. First it was civil servants, then lawyers, then judges, then international law. Now it is her own former party.
Her rhetoric about “managed decline” and national surrender is recycled grievance politics, stripped of solutions and heavy on resentment. It is also precisely the language that has fuelled Reform UK’s rise: simple slogans, easy villains, and no credible plan to govern.
Reform UK: a refuge for failure
Braverman becomes the eighth MP to join Reform UK, following former Home Office colleague Robert Jenrick earlier this month. Labour has accused Nigel Farage of “stuffing his party full of the failed Tories responsible for chaos and decline”, and it is hard to argue otherwise.
This is not a movement of renewal; it is a refuge for politicians who have already had power and demonstrably failed with it.
Anna Turley, Labour’s chair, was blunt: Braverman “helped botch Brexit and got sacked as home secretary”. The Liberal Democrats were equally scathing, accusing her of “selective amnesia” and reminding the public that she “helped break” Britain before now claiming to be able to fix it.
Weymouth and Portland will not forget
For people in Weymouth and Portland, Braverman’s defection is unlikely to provoke surprise — but it should provoke anger. The Bibby Stockholm was imposed on the area with arrogance and disregard, leaving residents to deal with the social, economic and reputational fallout of a policy designed to play well on the right-wing press rather than work in reality.
Braverman’s move to Reform UK does not represent a break with her past. It is the logical conclusion of it.
She did not “come home”. She simply found a party that better matches the politics she practised all along: divisive, reckless, and utterly uninterested in the real-world consequences for ordinary communities.
The people of Weymouth and Portland, like much of the country, have already paid the price for that brand of politics. They should be under no illusion about what her latest reinvention really means.
