IT was a day of two halves. Thursday began with the cold-blooded sacking of a senior Tory frontbencher amid chaos in Reform’s ranks.
It ended, just hours later, with the two most popular politicians on the centre- right of British politics — Nigel Farage and Robert Jenrick — joining forces for the first time to announce the death of the Conservative Party.
Mr Jenrick, looking shell-shocked after being sacked as Shadow Justice Secretary by his own party leader amid claims he was plotting to defect to Reform, delivered a brutal takedown of the Tories’ record both past and present as he pledged his allegiance to his new colleagues in teal rosettes.
So as the dust settles over Westminster, after what Kemi Badenoch had dubbed a “political psychodrama”, who are the winners and who are the losers?
Undoubtedly the biggest winner is Nigel Farage, who has claimed yet another Tory scalp for Reform.
And, make no mistake, this is a seriously big one.
After the defection of ex-Tory Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi went down like a cup of cold sick with the Reform Party faithful, Robert Jenrick — the most popular MP among the Tory grassroots — will be welcomed with open arms by many Reform voters.
While defections of ex-Tory MPs can reek of self-interest and desperation, the switching of a prominent frontbencher with a reasonable chance of one day becoming Tory Party leader is quite the coup.
The loser is very much the Conservative Party. Yet, ironically, it may be good news for Kemi Badenoch personally, who proved herself to be a decisive and ruthless leader and is looking stronger now than at any time since she beat Jenrick for the top job 15 months ago.
Ruthless streak
She may have lost a senior member of her Shadow Cabinet, but she’s also kneecapped a deadly rival and no longer faces the prospect of a Jenrick leadership challenge if the May election results prove as dire for the Tories as many expect.
But Jenrick’s naked ambition may leave many voters with doubts about his trustworthiness.
Julia
Her vicious ambushing of Jenrick — announcing his sacking with the stony face of a Mafia boss in a pre-recorded video on X just moments after he was given the news by her chief whip — shows she has a ruthless streak that will stand her in good stead in the tough years ahead.
Badenoch said in her sacking video that British voters are “tired of political psychodrama” and so was she, later adding that Jenrick was “Nigel Farage’s problem now”.
What is not yet clear is whether this will prove to be a winning move for Jenrick.
His hard-hitting defection speech spelling out why the Tories cannot be the answer to broken Britain went down well with Reform voters — and no doubt many Tories toying with the prospect of defecting too.
Will more Tory defections swiftly follow?
Farage promised a high-profile Labour defection next week but he also warned that the door to defectors would be firmly closed after the May 7 elections.
But Jenrick’s naked ambition — and his swift journey from Remainer loyalist to flag bearer of the Tory right and now to Reform — may leave many voters with doubts about his trustworthiness.
Internal party shenanigans rarely matter to most voters when it comes to polling day.
However, what voters on the political Right WILL care about is what this will all mean for them.
Is this the beginning of the end of the Tory Party and does that make a Reform government more likely?
Will it make a Reform-Tory coalition more or less possible in the event of a hung parliament at the next election?
And — more crucially for many millions of centre-Right voters despairing at the failure and incompetence of Keir Starmer’s Labour government — could Robert Jenrick’s decision to join forces with Nigel Farage finally bring about what many have long hoped for: The uniting of the Right.
Ultimately, if the leading lights of the Tories and Reform can finally put their differences aside and come together, the biggest winner of this day of “political psychodrama” could well end up being the British people.
Cops controlled by loud minority
YOU may not have followed every cough and spit of the long-running saga of West Midlands police’s decision to ban Israeli football fans from a Europa League match away to Aston Villa.
But while the details of this story are shocking, the bigger picture is even worse, and we cannot afford to ignore what it means for the future of policing in our country.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood says she no longer has faith in the West Midlands chief constable Craig Guildford after a report showed that he and his colleagues had repeatedly lied about why they decided to ban fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv from attending that match last November.
They had claimed that the Israeli fans were a threat to local Muslims in Birmingham when in fact the truth was the exact opposite: the police knew that extremist Muslim community leaders in Birmingham had warned of violent Islamist attacks AGAINST the visiting Israeli fans.
With the backing of local independent MP Ayoub Khan, those extremists wanted Birmingham to be a no-go zone for Jews and Israelis.
And that is precisely what the West Midlands police provided.
And then they lied, lied and lied again to cover up their cowardly capitulation.
The litany of falsehoods, incompetence and apparent deception over this is beyond belief, but whether or not Craig Guildford remains in his job is not what really matters.
Undoubtedly, Guildford should be sacked and face charges of misconduct in public office.
However, this isn’t just about the fate of one copper. This is about the end of the rule of law in our country as we know it.
Policing in the UK is supposed to be without fear or favour.
And yet it is now clear that is no longer the case.
This isn’t a one-off scandal. Police across the nation chose for years not to tackle Pakistani grooming gangs amid worries about “community cohesion”.
They have refused to ban fortnightly anti-Semitic hate marches in London, or to arrest Islamist extremists threatening the Batley grammar school teacher and a schoolboy who scuffed a Koran, and stood by twiddling their thumbs while synagogues and Jewish businesses were besieged by protesters.
Again and again, police chiefs are choosing to take the side of the militant extremists making the threats rather than the innocent victims who are under threat.
The police are supposed to be there for all of us, not pander to the loudest minority. The rise of sectarian politics in our country has been bad enough. Sectarian policing is an outrage.
