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 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". He added: "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. 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.
Nigel Farage called the sacking the "latest Christmas present I've ever had" and said it was still "60/40" if Jenrick would defect until Badenoch forced his hand. 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 added that Jenrick was "in sackcloth and ashes" about decisions made during his time in the Tory government.
Jenrick 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. Jenrick confirmed he would not call a byelection in his Newark constituency.
