Braverman’s predictable defection is Farage’s biggest political gamble yet

It was a full 90 minutes into the Reform UK rally – and 10 minutes into Nigel Farage’s speech – when the surprise guest who was also not a surprise at all came bounding on to the stage: ah, Suella Braverman, we were expecting you.If ever there was a definition of a high-profile yet semi-detached Conservative, Braverman was it. Although twice the home secretary, and also attorney general, she has been on the backbenches for more than three years and had precisely zero chance of advancement under Kemi Badenoch.Braverman’s sudden appearance at a Reform event in London held ostensibly to promote the party’s policy on veterans’ affairs had been kept a secret, including seemingly from some of the party’s media officers.But at the same time, precisely no one was shocked. As such, within minutes of Braverman telling the cheering crowd that she had “come home”, her former party agreed, with a Tory spokesperson saying it was “always a matter of when, not if, Suella would defect”.Reform is now up to eight MPs, four of whom were elected as Conservatives. And crucially, for a party that may create the next government from, in effect, a standing start, three of these have top-level experience: Danny Kruger as a Downing Street adviser, and now Robert Jenrick and Braverman as cabinet ministers.But with the recent defections comes a risk, one highlighted repeatedly by Labour MPs and officials: vote Reform and you don’t get a new start, simply a Tory replay, one led by either misfits or electoral rejects, such as Nadhim Zahawi.The Tory party said Nadhim Zahawi, right, defected after first being rejected for a peerage. Photograph: Hiba Kola/ReutersFarage is very aware of this, the main reason for his recent announcement of a supposedly strict 7 May deadline for any party-switchers. A momentum-creating flood is good; a gradual, slightly needy trickle less so.But to a greater extent even than that of Jenrick, who joined just over a week ago, Braverman brings with her some baggage, both career-wise and ideologically. On the first ledger comes the fact that she has been sacked as home secretary not once, but twice. On the first occasion, she could not even survive the entire 45 days of the Liz Truss era, being forced to resign after using a personal email address to send sensitive documents to a fellow Tory MP.Less than a week later, she was back under Rishi Sunak, but lasted little more than a year before being ousted for writing an unauthorised newspaper article blamed for exacerbating tensions after she argued that police officers were tougher on rightwing extremists than pro-Palestinian demonstrators.These are just two of a long list of controversies generated by someone who, it is probably fair to say, proved an irritant at various times to all four prime ministers under whom she served.It is thus possibly no surprise that in July last year one “well placed insider” within Reform confidently briefed the Daily Mail that Braverman, described as “not a team player” and “too disruptive”, would not be welcome.Speaking to reporters after Braverman’s announcement, Farage denied that he had previously turned down the idea of her joining his party, but not that others had not felt this way: “I didn’t rule anything out. Other people on my behalf might have done. I didn’t.”Thus, much as Badenoch happily joked on ITV on Monday morning about Jenrick being the sort of colleague everyone has who never takes responsibility for mistakes and wants the credit for everything, few Conservative MPs will shed any tears over losing Braverman.Kemi Badenoch has made light of Robert Jenrick’s recent jumping ship to Reform. Photograph: Yui Mok/PAFor Braverman, personally, the defection is a no-brainer. As the mock chatshow host Mrs Merton might have asked: what was it that attracted you to the hard-right, culture war-friendly, anti-immigration party that happens to be leading every opinion poll?For Reform, it is more of a gamble, and not just because of the former home secretary’s history of falling out with people. While Braverman was rapturously received by the party hardcore on Monday, if Farage wants to win an election, he needs to appeal some way beyond the approximately 20% of voters who seem fully signed up to the Reform project, and bring in people with less trenchant views.Some of these could be tempted by Farage’s promise of a fresh start and national renewal, but they may also notice that most of the Tories brought into the fold are politicians tarred with the brush of previous failed governments.This is a balancing act Farage is only too aware of, which is why the idea of a Truss defection is, as he put it delicately on Monday, “unlikely”.In Braverman he has a ready-made home secretary who knows her way around Whitehall and would cheerfully implement as repressive a migration regime as requested. But he may also have brought in someone who is both a ticking timebomb and a barrier to expanding the party’s appeal. Even for a political gambler like Farage, it is a risk.