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Former Conservative shadow minister Robert Jenrick has announced he is joining Reform UK, hours after he was sacked by Tory leader Kemi Badenoch for plotting to defect to Nigel Farage’s party.
Jenrick was unveiled at a press conference by Farage, who thanked Badenoch for expelling her former Tory leadership rival and helping “realign the centre-right of British politics”.
In a scathing tirade against his old party and former colleagues, Jenrick said the Conservative Party “broke” the country and had “betrayed its voters”.
Badenoch said it was a “good day” for the Conservatives and Jenrick was “no longer my problem, he is now Nigel Farage’s problem”.
Jenrick insisted he had no ambitions to lead Reform UK and had not been offered a role in his new party, saying “I want Nigel to be prime minister”.
He becomes the second sitting Tory MP to switch to Farage’s party, which has been consistently leading in national opinion polls for months.
It follows the defection of former Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi this week and about 20 former Tory MPs to defect to Farage’s party, which currently only has five sitting MPs in the House of Commons.
Farage insisted that, while he had been talking to Jenrick for months, there had been no plans to reveal him as the party’s latest Tory defector at the press conference in Westminster on Thursday.
But he thanked Badenoch for what he called “the latest Christmas present I’ve ever had” before Jenrick walked on stage, following an awkward delay, to join the Reform UK leader.
“It’s time for the truth,” Jenrick said. “Britain has been in decline. Britain is in decline.”
He added: “Both Labour and the Conservatives broke Britain. And both are now dominated by those without the competence or backbone needed to fix it.”
It appears Jenrick was bounced into the move after Badenoch earlier said she had sacked him from the shadow cabinet, removed the whip and suspended his party membership.
She said: “I was presented with clear, irrefutable evidence that he was plotting in secret to defect in a way designed to be as damaging as possible to his shadow cabinet colleagues and the wider Conservative Party.”
Minutes before Jenrick was unveiled as Reform’s latest recruit, the Tory leader told the BBC: “I think the fact that Robert Jenrick was very happy to tell me just a few days ago he had no plans to defect while clearly plotting to do so and hurt his colleagues is not suitable for the Tory party.”
She added: “It is not a blow to lose someone who lies to his colleagues.
“I think people can see that the only person that is telling the truth is me. I have a duty to protect my colleagues… and I have a duty to those who vote Conservative.
“This has been a good day, bad people are leaving my party.”
Badenoch has appointed former Theresa May aide and West Suffolk MP Nick Timothy as his replacement, praising him as “a true Conservative” and “formidable campaigner”.
Various Conservative sources have been speaking to the BBC with versions of what happened, with one shadow cabinet minister claiming Jenrick left a printed copy of his resignation speech lying around, “like something from The Thick Of It”.
This was backed up by a senior Conservative MP close to Badenoch, who said they had got hold of a “full speech and media plan” for his defection, and another Conservative source talking about “material” that was left “lying around”.
This source told the BBC there was “plenty of evidence” Jenrick was getting closer to Reform and the defection was being planned “quite soon” and “in the most damaging way possible for the party”.
It’s alleged Jenrick had dinner with Farage last month – and his team had been speaking to “various people” about the possibility.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said Badenoch’s decision showed “weakness” and questioned why it’s taken her “so long” to act.
“Jenrick has been making toxic comments to try and divide our country for months and months and months and it’s only now, when he’s on the verge of defecting to Reform, that Badenoch gets round to sacking him,” he said.
Sir Keir said the “flood” of Conservative politicians going across to Reform UK showed the “Tory party is a sinking ship” and added: “Nigel Farage is welcoming these failed politicians into his ranks and building his party as a party of the Tory politicians who let the country down so badly.”
Jenrick’s sacking and switching of allegiances is a pivotal moment for the future of the British right wing, with Conservative MPs genuinely fearful their party is being usurped by Reform UK.
He finished second in the leadership election in 2024 and his creative use of social videos has only given him greater prominence since.
Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper MP said Jenrick “has an industrial-grade brass neck to be complaining about how broken Britain is, when it was him and his Conservative cronies who did such damage to our country and to trust and faith in politics”.
“Reform and the Conservatives are two sides of the same coin,” she said.
