The U.K. Conservative leader said she was presented with “clear, irrefutable evidence” her former leadership rival was planning to defect.
LONDON — Kemi Badenoch fired her former leadership rival Robert Jenrick from the Conservative Shadow Cabinet, alleging he is planning to defect to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.
The Tory chief said in an X video she was “very sorry to be presented with clear, irrefutable evidence” that Jenrick was “preparing to defect” and “planning to do so in the most damaging way possible to the Conservative Party and his Shadow Cabinet colleagues.”
It marks a massive moment for the U.K. right, with Farage’s Reform UK leading opinion polls, spooking center-right Conservatives who fear they could lose their seats at the next general election, not due until 2029.
Jenrick’s defection to Reform would mark the most high-profile departure from the Conservatives to date, although his next move remains unclear. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.
Farage told journalists in Scotland that he had spoken to Jenrick, but was not on the verge of signing a deal with him.
“Of course I’ve talked to Robert Jenrick,” said the Reform UK leader, who was speaking at a pre-planned press conference as Jenrick’s sacking was announced.
“Was I on the verge of signing a document with him? No. But have we had conversations? Yes,” Farage said.
‘Protect our party’
Jenrick, who finished second to Badenoch in the Tory leadership race triggered by the party’s crushing defeat in the 2024 U.K. general election, has maintained a high profile since failing to secure the top job, including posting viral social media videos taking on fare dodgers on the London underground.
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Tory Chief Whip Rebecca Harris informed Jenrick of Badenoch’s decision to sack him on Thursday morning. A senior Tory official, granted anonymity because they are not authorized to speak on the record, said Jenrick denied he was intending to defect — and then put the phone down. The same official did not deny reports that Team Badenoch obtained a copy of a planned Jenrick resignation speech that was left “lying around.”
In her X post on Thursday morning Badenoch said it was her “responsibility to protect our party, and faced with that information, I took the only decision that any responsible leader could.”
The Tory leader, who has also suspended Jenrick’s party membership and removed the party whip, added: “the British public are tired of political psychodrama. So am I. They saw too much of it in the last government, they’ve seen too much of it in this government.”
A second senior Conservative aide said of the leader’s move: “It’s blindsided everyone I think. No one expected the reaction Kemi has taken today.
“Everyone knows there’s been flirtations, shall we say, between Robert and Reform but no one expected it to come to such a dramatic head as it’s come to today.”
Asked whether more MPs could follow Jenrick out the door, the second aide pointed to the “brutality of the way Kemi has handled it,” revoking his Conservative membership as well as firing him from her top team. The move decisively rules out Jenrick from challenging Badenoch for the Tory leadership.
“It sends a really clear message to anyone that might follow him out the door,” they argued. “The idea that he has a massive cohort that will cross the Rubicon with him is for the birds really.”
Show of support
Senior Conservatives publicly rallied behind Badenoch following the announcement.
Former Cabinet minister John Whittingdale said Badenoch “had no choice and showed toughness and decisiveness in acting as she did.”
2024 intake MP Ashley Fox claimed the move showed Badenoch “has steel in her spine.”
But Farage told reporters he had spoken with “a number of very senior Conservatives” over the last month. Just days ago Farage announced the defection of former Conservative Cabinet minister Nadhim Zahawi to Reform UK.
“A lot of them realized that for all of the talk that Kemi’s doing better at PMQs —which is true — for all the talk of a supposed Kemi bounce, a lot of them realized that on May 8 the Conservative Party will cease to be a national party,” he said, referencing predictions the Conservatives will perform poorly in local elections across the U.K.
The governing Labour Party, which is trailing Reform UK in the polls, enjoyed a rare moment of cheer Thursday.
“It shows how weak Kemi Badenoch is that she could only sack Robert Jenrick when he was on his way out,” Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s press secretary argued. “But it doesn’t matter what rosette people like Jenrick put on. These are the people the public rejected because of their failures.”
This developing story is being updated.