Robert Jenrick has rounded off an extraordinary day on the British right by formally joining Reform. Sacked by Kemi Badenoch at 11 a.m., he was in Milbank Tower announcing his defection at 4:30 p.m. A grinning Nigel Farage gave him a brief introduction – only for there to be an awkward 30-second pause before Jenrick finally appeared. The Newark MP gave a 15-minute speech which set out his reasons for quitting. After a fairly dry first half which echoed his 2024 leadership campaign – with a detailed litany of state capacity failings – he then moved onto the crucial section of the speech: a denunciation of the party he served for two decades. Jenrick castigated his now former shadow cabinet members, turning on both Mel Stride and Priti Patel for their respective records on welfare and migration. The former, he said, blocked necessary reforms in government; the latter was responsible for ‘millions’ arriving here post-Brexit.
The new arrival was keen to make it clear that he knew who the boss was
Yet Jenrick was not content to merely critique his colleagues’ record in government. He cited a recent meeting of the shadow cabinet at which, he said, the overwhelming consensus was that ‘Britain was not broken.’ It was proof, he said, that the Tory party could not be the party to overhaul Britain and fix its underlying problems. ‘I can’t kid myself anymore,’ he said. ‘The party hasn’t changed and it never will. They don’t have the stomach to change.’ This is the argument that the likes of Danny Kruger – Jenrick’s campaign manager in that 2024 leadership contest – have also made when defecting to Reform. Farage looked delighted as his new recruit lambasted the party from which he had just been expelled. Jenrick was careful to pay his respects to Badenoch several times, but it delivered the message that Farage’s team will have wanted to hear: the Tory party as a genuine vehicle for change is finished.
When it came to questions, discussion was inevitably dominated by questions about Jenrick’s role in Reform. The new arrival was keen to make it clear that he knew who the boss was, arguing that no one would join Farage’s party if they did not wish to make him prime minister. Asked about his call last summer for Zia Yusuf to be ‘booted out’ from Reform over a controversial X post, Jenrick took care to praise his new colleagues. The most difficult exchange was when Jenrick was pressed about his recent denials that he was about to switch parties, to which he protested that he was ‘the only one who was honest’ about the failures of the last government.
For Farage, there was a clear element of satisfaction about today’s press conference. He said on multiple occasions that it was an ‘historic’ realignment on the ‘centre right of British politics.’ Time will tell how much of an event Robert Jenrick’s defection will be – and how many of his onetime followers choose to now follow suit.
Listen to James Heale and Tim Shipman discuss Jenrick’s defection on Coffee House Shots:
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