Robert Jenrick is now speaking exclusively to Laura Kuenssberg at BBC News and says he hopes his defection will “unite the right”.He said:This is uniting the right.My message for millions of people in the country who stuck with the Conservative party, often through gritted teeth because like me they were deeply frustrated, angry even, about what happened.They voted again in 2024 and many of those voters have now come to Reform over the course of the last year or so – but there are still people sticking with the party.If you want to get rid of this Labour government and have a strong reforming government to fix the country, there is frankly only one way to do that … that is to vote for Nigel and rally behind him and Reform.

He says if right-wing voters don’t vote for Reform, they could end up with Keir Starmer as prime minister or even in coalition with the Greens and Lib Dems,The “arsonists” who tanked the reputation of the Conservatives are still in charge of the party, Robert Jenrick has said as he and the Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, trade blows a day after his dramatic defection to Reform UK,Giving his first interview since his announcement on Thursday, the former shadow justice secretary said the Conservatives had not changed since the election, while defending himself against allegations of lying from his former party leader,Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said Nigel Farage has done her “spring cleaning”, after Robert Jenrick defected to Reform UK,The Conservative party leader told GB News: “I’m just glad that Nigel Farage is doing my spring cleaning for me.

He’s taking away my problems.The Conservative party is...even more united and stronger, because we’ve lost someone who was not a team player.

”In his interview with the BBC’s Laura Kunessberg, Reform’s Robert Jenrick defended his role in the previous Conservative government,He said he “always tried to challenge the system” and “worked like crazy” to bring down immigration numbers,Labour said Robert Jenrick was “one of the arsonists who inflicted chaos and decline” on Britain while serving as a Tory minister under the previous government,Citing comments made by Nigel Farage before Jenrick defected to Reform UK on Thursday, Labour chairwoman Anna Turley said: “In the words of his new party leader: Robert Jenrick is a fraud,He himself is one of the arsonists who inflicted chaos and decline on Britain while the Tories were in government.

”Ed Davey said Robert Jenrick “helped wreck the NHS” while serving as a health minister in the previous Tory government.Responding to Jenrick’s BBC interview after his defection to Reform UK, the Liberal Democrat leader said: “People are fed up of hearing that Britain is broken from the very people like Robert Jenrick and Nigel Farage who broke it in the first place.”Craig Guildford is to retire as chief constable of West Midlands police, the Guardian understands.His departure comes after an official inquiry found his force used “exaggerated and untrue” intelligence to justify a ban on Israeli football fans.The decision is scheduled to be officially announced at 4pm on Friday by the West Midlands police and crime commissioner, Simon Foster.

In other news, Nigel Farage has fallen victim to another prank on the paid video service Cameo, this time paying tribute to the child sexual abuse offender Ian Watkins.Cameo allows fans to pay celebrities to make personalised video messages, with the Reform party leader offering his services from £78.45.In a 27-second video posted online by John Smith, who requested the clip, Farage called the former Lostprophets singer, who was killed in prison last year, “a good man, a really good guy” who “loved his children”.The “arsonists” who tanked the reputation of the Conservatives are still in charge of the party, Robert Jenrick has said as he and the Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, trade blows a day after his dramatic defection to Reform UK.

Giving his first interview since his announcement on Thursday, the former shadow justice secretary said the Conservatives had not changed since the election, while defending himself against allegations of lying from his former party leader,He told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg on Friday: “I came to the conclusion over the course of the last year or so that … the party hadn’t changed, that the people who’d made those mistakes were still sat around the shadow cabinet table, the arsonists were still in control of the party, and that this was not a party that was capable of even understanding what it had got wrong, let alone fixing it,”Jenrick insisted “I could not have been franker” about his intentions, despite telling the Conservative chief whip on Thursday he would never defect – an act that Badenoch said showed he “tells a lot of lies”,In her own set of broadcast interviews hours earlier, Badenoch said: “You can’t believe a word that comes out of his mouth,This is a man who was asked yesterday morning, ‘Are you going to defect?’ And he said ‘never’ to the chief whip.

”She added: “People from Reform and other Conservative party members have been bringing stuff to me about the actions he had been doing to undermine the party, and I kept giving him a chance.So I’m just glad that Nigel Farage is doing my spring cleaning for me.He’s taking away my problems.”The public row between the two former Tory leadership rivals comes as both parties digest the news of Reform’s most significant defection yet.Jenrick’s move has been largely welcomed among Reform MPs and members, but also by some Conservatives who say it has strengthened Badenoch’s position in her own party.

Craig Guildford is to retire as chief constable of West Midlands police, the Guardian understands.His departure comes after an official inquiry found his force used “exaggerated and untrue” intelligence to justify a ban on Israeli football fans.The decision is scheduled to be officially announced at 4pm on Friday by the West Midlands police and crime commissioner, Simon Foster.The pressure on one of Britain’s most senior chief constables has been intense after the basis for his force’s claims about the ban unravelled and the home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, said she had no confidence in him.In the end Guildford decided the pressure was too much.

He had wanted to wait until at least 27 January, when his police and crime commissioner had called a meeting where the chief constable would be publicly questioned,He has served 32 years as an officer and will retire on Friday, and be entitled to his full pension,Guildford, 52, felt the intense row and criticism was a distraction unlikely to die down or go away,The fallout led some of his fellow chief constables to believe he should go and that by clinging on Guildford was damaging the reputation of policing nationally and its standing with the public,Foster accepted his decision, made on Friday.

Labour said Robert Jenrick was “one of the arsonists who inflicted chaos and decline” on Britain while serving as a Tory minister under the previous government,Citing comments made by Nigel Farage before Jenrick defected to Reform UK on Thursday, Labour chairwoman Anna Turley said: “In the words of his new party leader: Robert Jenrick is a fraud,“He himself is one of the arsonists who inflicted chaos and decline on Britain while the Tories were in government,“Now he wants the public to believe he’d do a better job through Farage’s Reform,It’s a recipe for more of the same chaos that held our country back for far too long.

“While he and the other 23 failed former Tory MPs who have run off to Reform focus on their careers, Labour is focused on delivering the change working people voted for and cutting the cost of living.”Sir Ed Davey said Robert Jenrick “helped wreck the NHS” while serving as a health minister in the previous Tory government.Responding to Jenrick’s BBC interview after his defection to Reform UK, the Liberal Democrat leader said: “People are fed up of hearing that Britain is broken from the very people like Robert Jenrick and Nigel Farage who broke it in the first place.“Robert Jenrick was a Conservative health minister who helped wreck the NHS, while Nigel Farage championed Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal which damaged the economy and increased the cost of living.“Liberal Democrats will be the home for all those former Conservative voters who feel appalled by Nigel Farage and let down by Kemi Badenoch.

”In other news, Nigel Farage has fallen victim to another prank on the paid video service Cameo, this time paying tribute to the child sexual abuse offender Ian Watkins,Cameo allows fans to pay celebrities to make personalised video messages, with the Reform party leader offering his services from £78,45,In a 27-second video posted online by John Smith, who requested the clip, Farage called the former Lostprophets singer, who was killed in prison last year, “a good man, a really good guy” who “loved his children”,He pretended to know Watkins, whose victims included a baby boy, and said he was “very much in contact with me”.

It follows a similar prank in 2021 when Farage unwittingly issued a message of support to the IRA, ending a birthday message with: “Up the Ra!”When asked by Metro about the latest clip, Farage said: “Thank him for the money.There are lots of Ian Watkins.Tell him to send more.I did alter his request.”Farage’s Cameo page claims to offer fans “a unique opportunity to receive personalised messages from the former UK politician and Brexit leader”.

It adds: “His videos provide an entertaining and lighthearted way for fans to connect with him and his signature straight-talking, anti-establishment style,”In his interview with the BBC’s Laura Kunessberg, Reform’s Robert Jenrick defended his role in the previous Conservative government,He said he “always tried to challenge the system” and “worked like crazy” to bring down immigration numbers,He said:When I couldn’t persuade the government to do more, I resigned, I went onto the backbenches, and I started to campaign there,But added:I haven’t been perfect.

Jenrick tells the BBC that he made his decision to leave the Tories for Reform over Christmas.However, he admits it was a decision made over several years and said the Conservatives had not changed.He says he attended a cabinet meeting a week ago where it was discussed whether Britain is broken.For those who believe it is broken, he says they said: “We can’t say it because it was the Conservative Party who broke it”.Robert Jenrick is now speaking exclusively to Laura Kuenssberg at BBC News and says he hopes his defection will “unite the right”.

He said:This is uniting the right.My message for millions of people in the country who stuck with the Conservative party, often through gritted teeth because like me they were deeply frustrated, angry even, about what happened.They voted again in 2024 and many of those voters have now come to Reform over the course of the last year or so – but there are still people sticking with the party.If you want to get rid of this Labour government and have a strong reforming government to fix the country, there is frankly only one way to do that … that is to vote for Nigel and rally behind him and Reform.He says if right-wing voters don’t vote for Reform, they could end up with Keir Starmer as prime minister or even in coalition with the Greens and Lib Dems.

Kemi Badenoch has said she cannot do a deal with “liars” when asked about a possible pact with Reform UK in the wake of Robert Jenrick’s defection,Asked if she could commit to the Conservatives going into the next election alone, she told reporters in Scotland: “Yes,How do you do a deal with liars?“How do you do a deal with people who have been saying things that were clearly not true, not just for months, but clearly for years?”Asked if she was ruling out a potential pact with Nigel Farage’s party, she said: “I have ruled it out about a million times,”Badenoch went on to say that anyone in the Conservative party interested in “pyschodrama” should go,Asked if she felt any more “spring cleaning” needed to be done in her party after Robert Jenrick’s defection to Reform UK, she told the Press Association: If they’re people who do not belong in our party, who think that it’s all a game and that people’s lives are a game, they just want all this psychodrama, then yes, they should go.

“We don’t want people like that in the Conservative party.They caused all the problems, and now people can see that the Conservative party is getting its act together.“We are now a changed party under new leadership, and the people who can’t deal with that are leaving.”