Nadhim Zahawi

Early Life

Born in Iraq in 1967, he is from an influential and wealthy family with connections to the Iraqi government.

The Zahawi family fled to UK when Nadhim was 11, to escape Saddam Hussein's regime. While nobody can take away from him what a traumatic experience being forced out of your country to another where you know nothing of the language or culture, claims from his defenders that he "started from nothing" are grossly exaggerated.

Clearly from a wealthy family. He was privately educated, then attended University College London, where he studied Chemical Engineering.

Pre-political career

He somehow transitioned from Chemical Engineering graduate 1988 into toys and licensed clothing distribution. He owned a clothing company throughout the 1990s which went bankrupt in 1998. He was also Marketing Director of Smith & Brooks, a toy distributor.

Zahawi then, in 2000, founded polling firm YouGov with his friend. He was chief executive until 2010.

His own website misses out all the bits in between including his substantial private property portfolio, amounting to as much as £100 million.

Check the video below to learn a bit more of his origin story.

Political Career

Even with an £100 million fortune, Zahawi became an MP in 2010. Had several ministerial posts, including overseeing the COVID vaccine rollout. He became Chancellor of the Exchequer in July 2022 until September 2022.

Zahawi chaired the Kurdistan APPG in 2014 (a cross-party group of MPs which discuss issues affecting Kurdistan and seeks to strengthen ties between the region and the UK). During his time as Chair, Zahawi made several trips to Kurdistan, including to oil fields. A lot of the Kurdistan APPG activity was funded by oil company Gulf Keystone, in which Zahawi held shares. Concerns were raised at the time that activity such as this may make MPs vulnerable to lobbying.

Zahawi, through a company he is director of, Zahawi & Zahawi ltd, was also paid £1.3 million from Gulf Keystone including a one off "settlement payment" of £285,000 when he became a government minister. Due to the money going through a company and were not paid directly to him, there is less scrutiny in Parliamentary record keeping. So it us unclear what this payment was for or what Zahawi did to earn this money.

Despite being a multi-millionaire, he put the cost of heating his horses’ stables on expenses. This was found to be an honest mistake. And let's face it, we've all been there.

Side-gigs while an MP

Zahawi earned at least £1.3 million during his time as a backbencher from Gulf Keystone, the same big oil company that financially contributes to the Kurdistan APPG. This was for between 8-21 hours per month of work. It is not known what consultancy Zahawi offered, but it’s not a bad gig for a guy who’s only known employment before becoming an MP were for a toy company and a polling firm.

We do not know the full extent of his “consultancy” earnings because Zahawi has made use of a loophole where it does not need to declare exact earnings if paid to a separate company and not directly to him.

Flip-Flopping (if you don't like my values, I have others)

Among July 2022's mass resignations of Tory Cabinet Members, Nadhim Zahawi was appointed to replace Rishi Sunak as Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took the job, then days later, wrote him a public letter telling him to resign.

What's even more strange is that, just a few months later when Liz Truss (Johnson's replacement) resigns as Prime Minister after just 44 days in office, he Zahawi is calling for Johnson to be reinstated. Zahawi even penned a Telegraph article outlining why Johnson would make such a fantastic Prime Minister, which only stayed online for a few hours before being deleted.

Tax controversies

Family have lots of dealing with tax havens. Got £26 million of unsecured loans reported by his family property firm in 2018 which were unexplained.

In 2020, Zahawi’s tax affairs were under investigation by the National Crime Agency and Serious Fraud Office. This involves his shares of YouGov, which he used to own, which were being held in a trust in Gibraltar held by his family. Zahawi was questioned about this when running to be Prime Minister in 2022, but he denied any wrongdoing, and described reporting on the issue as smears, stating: “Let me be absolutely clear. I am not aware of this. I have not been told that this is the case. I’ve always declared my financial interests and paid my taxes in the UK."

However later, in 2023, reports were found true, as Zahawi in fact paid a penalty and back taxes totaling £5 million to the HMRC. This issue was settled while he was Chancellor of the Exchequer in July 2022, meaning he must have known about the investigations. Additionally, there is a clear conflict of interest that the man in charge of the HMRC was also in dispute with them.

Zahawi described the failure to pay proper taxes as "carelessness" but his he was careful enough to threaten legal action on news outlets that tried to report on the issue. This includes The Independent newspaper, and tax expert, Dan Neidle, among others.