Barbs and a betrayal as Jenrick joins Reform after Badenoch gives him boot
Robert Jenrick made a dramatic defection to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK on Thursday, declaring the Conservatives “rotten” and a “failed” party, after being sacked by Kemi Badenoch for plotting against her,In a high-stakes day for the future of the British right, Jenrick became the most senior Tory to switch allegiance to Reform, launching into a fiery and personal denunciation of his former colleagues in the shadow cabinet,The defection of Jenrick deepens the schism on the right of politics as Badenoch struggles to keep the Conservatives together in the face of a string of high-profile moves to Reform,The former shadow justice secretary, who stood for the Tory leadership against Badenoch, said the Conservative party in Westminster “isn’t sorry, it doesn’t get it, it hasn’t changed, it won’t change, it can’t change”,“In opposition, it is easy to paper over these cracks, but the divisions and delusions are still there,” he said at a hastily reorganised press conference with Farage in Westminster on Thursday.
“I can’t in good conscience stick with a party that has failed so badly,”Jenrick had the Conservative whip removed and his party membership suspended earlier in the day, after Badenoch said she had found “irrefutable evidence” that he was planning to defect,The Tory leader appointed the West Suffolk MP Nick Timothy as shadow justice secretary after Jenrick’s sacking,His dismissal appeared to have caught both him and Farage off-guard,The Reform leader called it the “latest Christmas present I’ve ever had” and said it was still “60/40” if Jenrick would defect until Badenoch forced his hand.
However, Jenrick later admitted that he had already resolved to defect by the morning of his sacking, and that it would probably have happened in the coming days.Jenrick arrived on stage – after a lengthy and awkward delay – with a savage denunciation of his former party and its time in government.“What’s the truth? Both Labour and the Conservatives broke Britain.Both parties are committed to a set of ideas that have failed Britain,” he said.A senior Reform source said: “He’s the No 1 Tory we have all wanted to come over.
He’s been a lone warrior in his party ever since Kemi won [the leadership].”Jenrick said discussions had started with Reform in September, understood to have been facilitated by the former Tory adviser Tim Montgomerie, who joined Farage’s party in December 2024.He also confirmed that he would not call a byelection in his Newark constituency.But Jenrick added that there had not been discussions about a defection, but about the state of the country.“Nothing has been offered, I’m proud to join and work with a set of people I have come to know over a very long time … who have built this party from nothing and I’m just here to play my part,” he said.
Jenrick said that some around the shadow cabinet table had said behind closed doors they knew the UK was broken but could not admit it “because it was us who broke it”,He singled out the shadow chancellor, Mel Stride, and the shadow foreign secretary, Priti Patel, for direct criticism,Stride, he said, was the work and pensions secretary who “oversaw the explosion of the welfare bill and blocked the reforms needed”,He said that Patel as home secretary had overseen the surge in legal migration,The former immigration minister admitted he had not intended to leave the Tories on Thursday but said he had resolved to leave soon.
“I didn’t know I was going to leave today, but I had resolved to leave the party, and that was, as I said, something I had given a great deal of thought to over a very long time, and the fact that it’s happened a little bit sooner … so what?”Farage said that after the 7 May local elections there would be no more Tory defections, and Reform would reject more seeking to join,He said Jenrick was “in sackcloth and ashes” about decisions made during his time in the Tory government,Over the course of the next few weeks, Reform would begin to allocate jobs and responsibilities to key people, Farage said,Jenrick is understood to have discussed party’s economic policies with Farage, but any appointment as its economic spokesperson could cause tensions with the party’s deputy leader, Richard Tice, and Zia Yusuf, the head of policy, who are also potential contenders,Farage said he knew the party had to have some experienced people if it was to enter government.
“We need the experience, I think that’s absolutely vital.”Jenrick denied he was interested in becoming the leader of Reform.“No one joins Reform unless they believe Nigel Farage is the best person to lead this country … that’s why I’ve put aside my personal ambition.”Both men brushed off their previous criticisms of each other, saying it was the way of politics, despite Farage having described Jenrick as a “fraud” who cannot be trusted as recently as last summer.Westminster sources said Badenoch had been monitoring Jenrick’s activities for some time because of suspicions he was working to undermine the party, and she believed his defection was imminent.
It later emerged one of Jenrick’s own inner circle had discovered his draft resignation speech and sent it to the leader’s office, parts of which were released by the Conservative party on Thursday.One person from Jenrick’s wing of the party said they believed the MP had defected after realising he did not have enough support in the party to launch a challenge to Badenoch with guaranteed success after the May elections – especially with rising star Katie Lam building a support base.Speaking to journalists on a visit to Edinburgh ahead of May’s Holyrood elections, where polls suggest the Scottish party will incur heavy losses at the hands of Reform, Badenoch denied this was “a very bad day”.She said defections to Reform were evidence that “a lot of people have gone into politics for the wrong reasons”.“People who go into politics because they think it’s a gravy train, or because they think it’s a way to get on TV, are finding out that the Conservative party is not the party for them,” she said.
“And they’re going to the party that is for people like that.Robert Jenrick is not my problem any more.He’s Nigel Farage’s problem now.”The Tory leader said more details on the “irrefutable evidence” that prompted her to sack Jenrick on Thursday morning would come “in due course”.“Every time we have a press conference, we have announcements, we have ideas of how to improve the country,” Badenoch said.
“When Reform has press conferences, it’s just: here’s another defection.”Badenoch told Sky News that Jenrick was planning to “torch the Conservative party by putting out comments and allegations that would have been very, very bad”.Shortly before the news broke on Thursday, Jenrick had posted on X: “It’s time for the truth.”
Barbs and a betrayal as Jenrick joins Reform after Badenoch gives him boot
Robert Jenrick made a dramatic defection to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK on Thursday, declaring the Conservatives “rotten” and a “failed” party, after being sacked by Kemi Badenoch for plotting against her.In a high-stakes day for the future of the British right, Jenrick became the most senior Tory to switch allegiance to Reform, launching into a fiery and personal denunciation of his former colleagues in the shadow cabinet.The defection of Jenrick deepens the schism on the right of politics as Badenoch struggles to keep the Conservatives together in the face of a string of high-profile moves to Reform.The former shadow justice secretary, who stood for the Tory leadership against Badenoch, said the Conservative party in Westminster “isn’t sorry, it doesn’t get it, it hasn’t changed, it won’t change, it can’t change”.“In opposition, it is easy to paper over these cracks, but the divisions and delusions are still there,” he said at a hastily reorganised press conference with Farage in Westminster on Thursday
‘Not so clever after all’: how Robert Jenrick was ejected before he defected
Four days before Robert Jenrick was kicked out of the Tories for planning to defect to Reform UK, he spoke “at length” with Kemi Badenoch on the phone about party strategy. The week before he had sat through a shadow cabinet awayday taking copious notes.While the Tory leader had been aware for some time of speculation over her shadow justice secretary’s future, she had no hard proof of his plans, so it was business as usual. That all changed just 24 hours after their one-to-one conversation.On Monday, senior figures in Badenoch’s office were sent screenshots of what one said was “irrefutably” Jenrick’s entire resignation speech from what sources claimed was a mole in his office, along with the accompanying media plan
Treachery and stupidity to the fore as Robert Jenrick defects to Reform | John Crace
One is too many and 1,000 never enough. Addiction is a tricky business. What starts as fun inevitably, insidiously, tears away the soul. And there are signs that Nigel Farage’s press conference habit is getting out of control. He started off at one a week
Robert Jenrick: from remainer to rightwinger with ruthless reputation
For a long time, Robert Jenrick’s transformation from a David Cameron-supporting remainer to an anti-immigration rightwinger did not convince many of his political peers – least of all Nigel Farage.Only last year, the Reform UK leader was describing him as a “fraud” and saying he was sceptical that Jenrick was genuine, dubbing him “Robert the Generic, Robert the Remainer and Robert the I Don’t Stand Particularly for Anything at all”.“There are people in politics who are there through conviction and there are people in politics who are there because they want to reach rank, position and all that comes with that,” he said at the time.“I’m really still not sure about Jenrick, to be honest with you, I’m really not sure.”Now, the verdicts of some of Jenrick’s Tory colleagues on his political behaviour are similarly damning and centre on his unbridled ambitions
Tory defectors: who has already joined Reform UK and who may follow?
With Robert Jenrick’s defection, the number of current or former parliamentarians to have joined Reform from the Conservatives has risen to 18. Some of the best known are likely to be prominent voices for Nigel Farage’s party in the run-up to the next election.There are others within the Conservative party thought to have considered their position in recent months. But Farage has claimed that the value of such additions to his ranks is dropping – and said he would accept no further defectors from the Tories after the May elections, arguing that by then his party’s strength would be so clear that they would have little to add.Here are some of the most prominent figures on both sides of that divide
‘The mask has slipped’: What have Jenrick and Farage said about each other in the past?
Like other Conservative recruits to Reform UK, Robert Jenrick’s defection has come with no shortage of lacerating past comments about Nigel Farage and his other new colleagues.When Nadhim Zahawi defected to Reform on Monday, Conservative headquarters were quick to unload the former chancellor’s previous comments about Farage on to social media.In the case of Jenrick, below is just some of the ammunition they have been drawing on once again.Today I took forward a bill to stop the two-tier sentencing rules that come into force in just 18 days. While Nigel Farage swanned off to Cheltenham to forget his troubles
Bank of England governor calls for fightback against populism; South East Water restores service to most Kent and Sussex homes – business live
Top two executives at City & Guilds placed on leave
TikTok to strengthen age-verification technology across EU
X still allowing users to post sexualised images generated by Grok AI tool
Max Verstappen admits new F1 season is step into unknown amid rule changes
NFL divisional round predictions: which No 1 seed is set for an unpleasant shock?