Robert
Jenrick defects to Reform UK after Conservative party suspension
Announcement
comes after Kemi Badenoch sacked shadow justice secretary over evidence of
defection plot
Jessica
Elgot, Rowena Mason and Libby Brooks
Thu 15
Jan 2026 19.55 GMT
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
defection of Jenrick deepens the schism on the right of politics as Badenoch
struggles to keep the Conservatives together in the face of a string of
high-profile moves to Reform.
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”.
“In
opposition, it is easy to paper over these cracks, but the divisions and
delusions are still there,” he said at a hastily reorganised press conference
with Farage in Westminster on Thursday. “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.
His
sacking appeared to have caught both him and Farage off guard. The Reform
leader called it the “latest Christmas present I’ve ever had” and said it was
still “60/40” if Jenrick would defect until Badenoch forced his hand. However,
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.
Jenrick
arrived on stage – after a lengthy and awkward delay – with a savage
denunciation of his former party and its time in government. “What’s the truth?
Both Labour and the Conservatives broke Britain. Both parties are committed to
a set of ideas that have failed Britain.”
A senior
Reform source said: “He’s the number one Tory we have all wanted to come over.
He’s been a lone warrior in his party ever since Kemi won.”
Jenrick
said discussions had started with Reform in September, understood to have been
facilitated by the former Tory adviser Tim Montgomerie, who joined Farage’s
party in December 2024. He also confirmed that he would not call a byelection
in his Newark constituency.
But
Jenrick added that there had not been discussions about a defection, but about
the state of the country. “Nothing has been offered, I’m proud to join and work
with a set of people I have come to know over a very long time … who have built
this party from nothing and I’m just here to play my part,” he said.
Jenrick
said that some around the shadow cabinet table had said behind closed doors
they knew the UK was broken but could not admit it “because it was us who broke
it”.
He
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.
The
former immigration minister admitted he had not intended to leave the Tories on
Thursday but said he had resolved to leave soon. “I didn’t know I was going to
leave today, but I had resolved to leave the party, and that was, as I said,
something I had given a great deal of thought to over a very long time, and the
fact that it’s happened a little bit sooner. So what?”
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 said Jenrick was
“in sackcloth and ashes” about decisions made during his time in the Tory
government.
Over the
course of the next few weeks, Reform would begin to allocate jobs and
responsibilities to key people, Farage said. Jenrick is understood to have
discussed party’s economic policies with Farage, but any appointment as its
economic spokesperson could cause tensions with the party’s deputy leader,
Richard Tice, and Zia Yusuf, the head of policy, who are also potential
contenders.
Farage
said he knew the party had to have some experienced people if it was to enter
government. “We need the experience, I think that’s absolutely vital.”
Jenrick
denied he was interested in becoming the leader of Reform. “No one joins Reform
unless they believe Nigel Farage is the best person to lead this country …
that’s why I’ve put aside my personal ambition.” Both men brushed off their
previous criticisms of each other, saying it was the way of politics, despite
Farage having described Jenrick as a “fraud” who cannot be trusted as recently
as last summer.
Westminster
sources said Badenoch had been monitoring Jenrick’s activities for some time
because of suspicions he was working to undermine the party, and she believed
his defection was imminent. It later emerged one of Jenrick’s own inner circle
had discovered his draft resignation speech and sent it to the leader’s office,
parts of which were released by the Conservative party on Thursday. One person
from Jenrick’s wing of the party said they believed the MP had defected after
realising he did not have enough support in the party to launch a challenge to
Badenoch with guaranteed success after the May elections – especially with
rising star Katie Lam building a support base.
Kemi
Badenoch during a visit to Edinburgh on Thursday. ‘Robert Jenrick is not my
problem any more. He’s Nigel Farage’s problem now,’ she said. Photograph: Murdo
MacLeod/The Guardian
Speaking
to journalists on a visit to Edinburgh ahead of May’s Holyrood elections, where
polls suggest the Scottish party will incur heavy losses at the hands of
Reform, Badenoch denied this was “a very bad day”. She said defections to
Reform were evidence that “a lot of people have gone into politics for the
wrong reasons”.
“People
who go into politics because they think it’s a gravy train, or because they
think it’s a way to get on TV, are finding out that the Conservative party is
not the party for them,” she said. “And they’re going to the party that is for
people like that.”
“Robert
Jenrick is not my problem any more. He’s Nigel Farage’s problem now.”
The Tory
leader said more details on the “irrefutable evidence” that prompted her to
sack Jenrick on Thursday morning would come “in due course”.
“Every
time we have a press conference, we have announcements, we have ideas of how to
improve the country,” Badenoch said. “When Reform has press conferences, it’s
just: here’s another defection.”
Badenoch
told Sky News that Jenrick was planning to “torch the Conservative party by
putting out comments and allegations that would have been very, very bad”.
Shortly
before the news broke on Thursday, Jenrick posted on X: “It’s time for the
truth.”
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