Former Conservative minister Robert Jenrick has made explosive claims that he repeatedly urged party leader Kemi Badenoch to expel ex-Prime Minister Liz Truss from the Tory ranks, citing her disastrous mini-budget as a primary reason for his dramatic defection to Reform UK.
"Chuck Liz Truss Out": Jenrick's Repeated Demands
In a series of media interviews on Monday 19 January 2026, Jenrick detailed his growing frustration with the Conservative Party's direction. He stated he had told Badenoch "multiple times" to remove Liz Truss's membership, arguing that her economic policies had caused significant damage to the public.
"If I'd been leader of the Conservative Party... I would have chucked Liz Truss out of the party because the mini-budget was careless and cackhanded," Jenrick told Sky News. He emphasised the tangible consequences, stating, "It did cause, in the moment, real harm to people... people's house sales fell through, they were worried about their mortgages, investments, their pensions." He concluded, "That is not somebody who should be a member of your political party."
A Defection Rooted in Disillusionment
Jenrick, who was sacked from the front bench last week after Badenoch accused him of "secretly plotting" a move to Nigel Farage's Reform party, framed the refusal to oust Truss as symbolic of a wider failure. He suggested the party's inaction demonstrated it was "in denial – or being dishonest" about its record and unwilling to enact genuine change.
His defection followed what he described as a betrayal of Tory voters and members. Speaking to Times Radio, he criticised Badenoch's leadership, claiming she was not prepared to acknowledge the scale of Britain's problems. "I don’t believe you can even begin to fix it unless you’re willing to own up, see what’s actually happening, recognise the scale of the challenge," Jenrick said. "It feels like Kemi and the Conservative Party have got their heads in the sand right now."
The Truss Legacy and Tory Divisions
The controversy centres on Liz Truss's brief but tumultuous tenure in Number 10 during 2022, which lasted just seven weeks. Her mini-budget, which promised the biggest tax cuts in half a century, triggered a market meltdown, sent the pound to a 37-year low, and sparked a gilt sell-off that forced mortgage products to be withdrawn.
In response to Jenrick's broadside, Kemi Badenoch has maintained a defiant stance. Writing in The Daily Telegraph on Saturday, she insisted Britain remained a successful nation and drew a clear line between the Tories and Reform's more pessimistic outlook. "Ours is still one of the most successful, resilient and influential countries on Earth," she wrote, arguing that telling people their country was finished "does not empower the British people – it drags them down."
The public clash between a former senior minister and the current leader exposes deep fractures within the Conservative Party as it grapples with its identity and electoral strategy following a period of significant instability and the rise of a challenger on its right flank.
