A Week in Politics #3
Liam McArthur (Photo: Orkney Liberal Democrats) It's the end of another week in which the main news stories have been about Reform UK. Zahawi’s jump to Reform: principles for sale? Nadhim Zahawi’s defection to Reform UK is being sold by his new party as a grand ideological awakening. In reality, it looks far more like a careerist pivot dressed up as conviction. This is the same politician who previously attacked Nigel Farage in strikingly moral terms — reportedly calling him “deeply racist” and even saying he’d be “frightened” to live in a country run by him — only to now appear alongside him as the latest “big scalp”. If you can denounce a movement as dangerous one year and join it the next, voters are entitled to ask: what changed — the country, or your prospects? The reporting that Zahawi sought (and was denied) a Conservative peerage shortly before switching parties makes the motivation feel uncomfortably transparent. He can insist he’s just a “foot soldier” and supports Refor...
