Reform threatens to sue Kemi Badenoch over psychological well being declare
After the former minister defected to Nigel Farage’s party on Monday, a Conservative spokesperson claimed the party had done all it could ‘to look after Suella’s mental health, but she was clearly very unhappy’
Kemi Badenoch has been urged to deliver a public apology(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
Reform UK has threatened to sue Kemi Badenoch unless she apologises to Suella Braverman over Tory claims about her mental health.
After the former minister defected to Nigel Farage ’s party on Monday, a Conservative spokesperson claimed the party had done all it could “to look after Suella’s mental health, but she was clearly very unhappy”. The attack on her mental health triggered a backlash, with Conservative peer Lord Jackson calling it a “nasty and unpleasant.
Labour MP Jake Richards wrote on X: “I hope decent Conservatives call this statement out. It is beneath them.” The line was stripped out of a reissued statement sent a few hours later, and the party claimed the earlier version was a draft sent out in error.
READ MORE: MPs erupt in laughter after top Tory’s bizarre ‘stronger’ claim at PMQsREAD MORE: Tory defectors to Reform savaged in ‘tantrum’ jibe as Badenoch throws personal insults
However, Reform’s lawyers have now written to the Tory office accusing them of a “defamatory smear” and an intention to “harm Mrs Braverman with malice”. They are now demanding Ms Badenoch offer a public apology by 4pm on Friday, and said that if she did not, Ms Braverman “reserves all her rights”.
The letter said: “No apology has been issued to Ms Braverman, publicly or privately. No acceptance of wrongdoing has been made in respect of the substance of what was said about her. The conflation of political disagreement or defection with alleged mental ill-health is not merely unlawful; it is ethically corrosive. It reinforces stigma, trivialises genuine mental illness, and weaponises invented vulnerability for political convenience, which is nothing short of a disgrace.”
The Tory statement criticising the former Home Secretary was withdrawn one and a half hours after it was issued, and Ms Badenoch’s office denied she had been aware of it. Later Ms Braverman branded the comment “pathetic” and pointed out that the Tory leader had previously accused her of having had a “nervous breakdown”.
On Wednesday, Mrs Badenoch said the statement had been “completely wrong” and that she had punished the person who sent it. She said: “That should never have gone out. It has been retracted. And I’ve also spoken to the person who sent it. It was completely wrong and not the kind of culture we should have in our party.”
