Jenrick claims he is ‘uniting the right’ by defecting to Reform UK

Robert Jenrick has denied his defection to Reform UK was about personal ambition, telling the BBC it was “uniting the right” of British politics.

The former minister joined Nigel Farage’s party on Thursday, hours after he was sacked from the Conservative shadow cabinet for plotting to defect.

In his first interview since his defection, Jenrick claimed Reform was the country’s “last shot” to fix the “broken” country – and launched a fresh attack on his former shadow cabinet colleagues, describing them as “arsonists”.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has claimed her party is stronger and more united since Jenrick left, saying he was not “a team player”.

Some senior Conservatives have called for the party to strike a deal with Reform to prevent the right-wing vote being split between the two parties.

However, Farage and Badenoch have both ruled this out and following Jenrick’s defection.

Challenged over whether backing Reform could help Labour return to power by splitting the right, Jenrick told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg: “This is uniting the right.”

“If you want to get rid of this Labour government and have a strong reforming government to fix the country, there’s frankly only one way to do that,” he said.

“That is to vote for Nigel [Farage], to rally behind him and Reform.”

He added that the country needed a “new and exciting” leader “who hasn’t been part of that failed consensus”.

Jenrick said his decision had put “personal ambition to one side”, adding that he had been the “bookies favourite” to be the next leader of the Tory Party.

“I chose to say no to all of that to join and be one of a team of people working under a very strong leader in Nigel Farage,” he said.

However, critics argue his chances of becoming Tory leader had become more remote after Badenoch’s polling improved and that this was what prompted his defection.

Jenrick denied he had been offered a job by Farage, claiming “I’m just here to help him succeed”.

Senior Conservatives believe some other MPs could also defect, although they are not expecting a big wave of departures imminently.

Asked if any other Tories could follow him to Reform, Jenrick said: “I have no idea and I haven’t spoken to colleagues or asked them to do so.”

Asked about reports a mole in his own team leaked his draft defection speech to Badenoch, Jenrick said he was told “a junior person” did this but he had already decided to join Reform beforehand.

Jenrick claimed he made the final decision to defect over Christmas, before he was sacked by Badenoch, although he said he had been in discussions with Farage for some time.

He said the “final straw” was at a shadow cabinet away day around a week ago, when there was a discussion about whether Britain was broken, with the party’s position that it was not.

Jenrick said some people in the room argued “Britain is broken, but we can’t say it because it was a Conservative Party that broke it”, while others claimed it was not.

“The arsonists were still in control of the party,” he said, adding that those who had made mistakes in government were still in the shadow cabinet.

“This was not a party that was capable of even understanding what it had got wrong, let alone fixing it.”

Defending his own record as a housing and immigration minister, Jenrick said he “always tried to challenge the system”.

At the Home Office, he said he found “a total bin fire” but “worked like crazy to try and fix that”.

“When I couldn’t persuade the government to do more, I resigned,” he said, referencing his decision to quit Rishi Sunak’s government for not going far enough to tackle illegal immigration.

However, Labour Party chairwoman Anna Turley said Jenrick was “one of the arsonists who inflicted chaos and decline on Britain while the Tories were in government”.

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey 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.”

Badenoch insisted the Conservatives were the only party focused on the issues affecting the public, adding: “People are sick and tired of psychodrama.”

“The people who were posing problems in the Conservative Party are leaving. They are doing my spring cleaning for me,” she said.

Jenrick is the second sitting Conservative MP to switch to Reform and the second former Conservative minister to join the party this week, following former Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi.

Shadow cabinet ministers have been playing down the significance of Jenrick’s defection, arguing that he has limited public recognition.

However, the Newark MP is popular among Conservative party members and his defection could also weaken the argument that Reform is a one-man band without any MPs who have experience of government.

Reform will be boosted by the arrival of their new member but it leaves them vulnerable to accusations, including from their own ranks, that the party is not just replacing the Conservatives but becoming them.