Robert Jenrick defects to Reform UK as Nigel Farage suffers awkward gaffe

Robert Jenrick has defected to Reform UK, Nigel Farage has announced at a press conference, after being sensationally kicked out of the Tory party earlier today

Tetchy Nigel Farage has unveiled ex-Tory minister Robert Jenrick as his latest defector - after years of dimissing him as a fraud.

Mr Jenrick announced he had joined the right-wing party hours after being sensationally sacked by Kemi Badenoch, who accused him of plotting to inflict the maximum damage on her. Mrs Badenoch learned of the plot after documents were left lying around by a member of his team, it emerged on Thursday morning.

Appearing alongside Mr Farage, treacherous Mr Jenrick whined that Britain was broken and the Tories had failed voters. There had been an awkward moment when his new boss announced his defection - but it took a long time for him to emerge.

Mr Jenrick repeatedly refused to personally apologise for his own record as he became the 24th ex-Tory MP to switch. Asked by The Mirror whether Reform members would accept a new MP who bragged about opening asylum hotels when he was a minister, Mr Farage said: "I'm getting people in who are apologetic, who are ashamed of what they've done in the past, recognised what went wrong and are determined to get it right."

He admitted that on Thursday morning, before Mrs Badenoch released the startling accusation, he had only been 60% sure that the defection would actually go ahead. Labour branded Mr Jenrick a shameless chancer as he became the latest Conservative to defect to Mr Farage's party.

It is an uneasy alliance after the duo have publicly traded blows. Mr Farage supporters in August last year: "My advice to you would be to say this man is a fraud.

"This man is not to be trusted. And certainly his party aren't either." Mr Farage also previously shared a quote by Mr Jenrick bragging about opening asylum hotels.

In 2022, while he was immigration minister, Mr Jenrick said: "More hotels have been coming online almost every month throughout the whole year What I have done is procure even more."

Mr Farage said last year when the clip resurfaced: "Jenrick is a fraud. I’ve alway thought so, this quote proves it." And in 2024 the Reform leader claimed Mr Jenrick had moved to the right for political gain.

Following his u-turn, the Reform leader claimed he had begun to change his mind about his new recruit. He said: "I wasn't sure that his conversion was genuine, perhaps he was doing it for political advantage within the Conservative Party to become leader.

"I had my doubts, but I've begun to believe since the summer that actually this guy has been genuine." The drama kicked off when Mrs Badenoch released a blistering video on social media revealing he had been sacked.

Mr Jenrick himself admitted that although he was resolved to move, he would have remained in the Conservative bold for a while longer before going public. In a blistering attack, Mrs Badenoch said: "I have sacked Robert Jenrick from the Shadow Cabinet, removed the whip and suspended his party membership with immediate effect.

"I was presented with clear, irrefutable evidence that he was plotting in secret to defect in a way designed to be as damaging as possible to his Shadow Cabinet colleagues and the wider Conservative Party.

"The British public are tired of political psychodrama and so am I. They saw too much of it in the last government, they’re seeing too much of it in THIS government. I will not repeat those mistakes."

The Tories declined to say what the evidence was, but it is understood a member of his team left documents lying around which revealed the plot. Mr Jenrick did not deny this when pressed - and refused to say if the staffer had been sacked.

But he denied quitting out of personal ambition, saying he had started the day as favourite to be the next Conservative leader. He stood to run the party after the general election wipeout in 2024, only to decisively lose to Mrs Badenoch.

In a rambling speech, Mr Jenrick spoke bitterly about former Conservative governments - and the current Tory party. And he hit out at rising migration, the backlog in the courts, “overflowing” prisons and the small size of the army - all of which got worse when he was a minister.

He said: “Both Labour and the Conservatives broke Britain, and both are now dominated by those without the competence or the backbone needed to fix it. Both parties, if judged by their own actions, are committed to a set of ideas that have failed and are failing Britain.

"Labour started mass migration, but the Conservatives ramped it up after 2019.” Mr Farage said he has been talking to Mr Jenrick "for some weeks, some months" and claimed the Tory party will "cease to exist" as a national political party after May's local elections.

He set a deadline for May 7 for anyone else in Parliament who wants to defect. The Reform leader said Mr Jenrick had not been planning to defect today or this week and that the Conservatives had "jumped the gun on this".

Labour chair Anna Turley said: "Robert Jenrick says the Tories broke Britain. Now he wants to do the same again with Farage's Reform. He's a shameless chancer who, like the other failed Tories who have scuttled off to Reform, are more interested in their careers than the country.

"With Jenrick in tow, Reform clearly wants to deliver the same chaos and decline he did while in government. While the Tories and Reform fight amongst themselves, Labour is delivering on the priorities of the British people and cutting the cost of living."

Liberal Democrat Deputy Leader Daisy Cooper MP said: "This was a conman introducing a charlatan. Robert Jenrick has an industrial-grade brass neck to be complaining about how broken Britain is, when it was him and his Conservative cronies who did such damage to our country and to trust and faith in politics.

"Reform and the Conservatives are two sides of the same coin." And Mrs Badenoch later said: "All I would say to Nigel is, Rob's not my problem anymore. He's your problem."

Mr Jenrick is a controversial figure in the Tory fold. He has been condemned for his use of language about immigration, and Mrs Badenoch faced calls to sack him last year after he hit out at the Handsworth area of Birmingham and said he had seen no white faces while filming a video there.

The ex-housing minister sparked a row after intervening to expedite approval for media mogul Richard Desmond’s housing project - after the pair shared a table at a Tory fundraising dinner.

It would have approved the Westferry Printworks project planned for South London just a day before a new infrastructure charge was introduced that would have cost Mr Desmond more than £40 million.

He was dismissed as Communities Secretary by Boris Johnson in 2021. Mr Jenrick returned to Government as a health minister and then as immigration minister under Rishi Sunak.

But he quit in December 2023 after disagreeing with his boss over the Rwanda plan, claiming Mr Sunak's legislation did not go far enough.