As the dust settled on the dizzying events at Westminster yesterday, it was Labour who had most to celebrate.
Nigel Farage was all smiles as he welcomed his latest – and biggest – defector to Reform’s HQ at London‘s Millbank Tower and declared the death of the Conservative Party.
A slightly shell–shocked Robert Jenrick insisted that his forced defection to Reform would liberate him from a party that had irrevocably lost its way.
Kemi Badenoch had earlier played a difficult hand with impressive ruthlessness and flair, booting her former leadership rival out of the party before he could defect, causing, she said, maximum damage to the Tories.
Her video explaining the decision went live while Mr Farage was speaking at a press conference in Scotland and Mr Jenrick was still coming to terms with his ejection from a party he joined at 16.
One Reform insider said admiringly that Mrs Badenoch had ‘dealt with it with Stalinist efficiency’.
Yet it is hard to escape the conclusion that the Conservative Party ended the day weaker than it had started it.
The man who almost won the leadership just over a year ago – and who remained in pole position to take over if Mrs Badenoch stumbled – now believes the party is finished and no longer even wants to be a member of it.
Nigel Farage was all smiles as he welcomed his latest – and biggest – defector to Reform’s HQ at London’s Millbank Tower and declared the death of the Conservative Party
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said she has sacked Shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick because of ‘irrefutable evidence that he was plotting in secret to defect’ from the party
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Is Robert Jenrick a bold truth-teller or just betraying his party for personal ambition?
Mr Jenrick yesterday claimed that even in the last few weeks he has continued to receive messages from shadow ministers telling him he should be leader.
Amidst the anger and betrayal, of which there was plenty at Westminster yesterday, there was also a sense of foreboding among Tory MPs.
In recent weeks, they have been telling themselves that things are looking up – Mrs Badenoch has got her mojo back and even the party’s dire poll ratings have crept up a little. Yesterday’s defection was like a punch to the gut.
Not that Mr Jenrick was universally – or even widely – liked among his colleagues. Many despised him for his undisguised ambition, willingness to rock the boat and habit of trampling all over their policy briefs.
Tory chairman Kevin Hollinrake said pointedly that Mr Jenrick was ‘Nigel Farage’s problem now’. If Mr Farage was worried that his new recruit could become a cuckoo in the nest it did not show.
Here at last was a senior serving politician defecting in the prime of his career, bringing the genuine front–line government experience that Reform lacks.
What is more, it delivers another heavy blow to the Conservative Party he is trying to destroy.
But it also risks making Reform look even more like a kind of Conservative Party 2.0.
Mr Farage enjoys ridiculing Boris Johnson’s record in government, but has now welcomed in seven members of Mr Johnson’s ministerial team.
But at the same time, any hope of uniting the Right of British politics has been made harder.
Mr Farage insisted that Mr Jenrick’s defection was ‘a big day in the realignment of the centre–Right of this country… the Right is a lot less split than it was this morning’. But he said the only way for the Right to be united was ‘for Reform to become the dominant party’.
Mr Jenrick said his ‘first loyalty’ is to ‘our country’ as he said ‘both Labour and the Conservatives broke Britain’
Mr Jenrick said: ‘If we don’t get the next government right Britain will likely slip beyond the point of repair’
Yet, even after its crippling defeat in 2024, the Tory party is showing no signs of going away. The party has ticked up ahead of Labour in the polls and money is continuing to pour in from business donors nervous about Reform’s economic prowess.
Despite Reform’s surge in the polls, so long as the centre–Right vote remains split, Labour is still in with a chance.
One senior Tory said: ‘There is going to have to be some sort of coming together before the next election or we are just going to hand it to Labour again. I don’t know how it will work but we have to do it for the good of the country.’ Mr Jenrick was once seen as a possible bridge to a Tory agreement with Mr Farage.
The fact that bridge has now been kicked away will fuel Labour hopes that, despite record unpoplularity, they could yet come through the middle of a divided Right and seize power again
