Robert Jenrick has joined Nigel Farage's party in a move leaving Nottinghamshire without a single Conservative MP
19:01, 15 Jan 2026
Just over a decade ago, Robert Jenrick was campaigning against Nigel Farage's UKIP party in the Newark by-election.
The contest ended up with Mr Jenrick becoming the Conservative MP for Newark, a role he has held ever since. Until today.
Mr Jenrick now says that Nigel Farage, whose former party he campaigned against to become Newark MP, is the best man to run the country and wants to see him become Prime Minister. What a journey.
Speculation around Mr Jenrick defecting to Reform UK has been swirling for months and it was one of many reasons why I was keen to have a long-form, sit-down interview with the Newark MP just before Christmas.
At Mr Jenrick's suggestion, we ended up meeting in a pub. The MP had said that "local issues" should be front and centre of the discussion, but he knew that questions around the Reform speculation would arise.
It turned out though that in looking for clues about Mr Jenrick's future, I didn't need to do a psychoanalysis of what he was wearing or what crisps he was eating (chorizo).
Here are five key things from the conversation in November that gave a strong indication his defection on Thursday (January 15) was coming.
Jenrick was continuing to 'plough his own furrow'
The Newark MP said on multiple occasions in our interview that he was continuing to 'plough his own furrow', which could be seen as a reference to the fact that he had taken it upon himself to wage a one-man war on X against issues ranging from fare dodging to dodgy car boots sales.
Yet the comment spoke to something broader, with Mr Jenrick saying: "I've tried in recent years, in particular, to be a very independent-minded member of parliament."
It was a strong indication that, despite his history, Mr Jenrick was in no way joined at the hip to the Conservatives.
Conservative Party needs to 'go much further'
Whilst still in the party, Mr Jenrick was always keen to avoid direct attacks on Kemi Badenoch's leadership, yet he made clear in his interview that she had not yet done enough to transform the Conservatives.
He said: "The Conservative Party has not changed enough yet, as is evident in continued poor polling.
"The party's got to be almost a new Conservative Party with different people, different attitudes and begin slowly to regain the public's trust and confidence.
"It's started that journey, but it needs to go much, much further in my view."
Leadership bid was 'ancient history'
Asked if Kemi Badenoch was still the right person to lead the Conservative Party, Mr Jenrick said his own leadership bid against her was 'ancient history'.
Mr Jenrick had made clear in his interview that he wanted to be part of turning Britain around, a theme he has developed much further since. In seeking ways to do that, his 'ancient history' comment was a hint that he was running out of ways to do so within the Conservative Party.
A particularly pointed comment on their future came when the MP said: "No political party has a divine right to exist, even one like the Conservative Party that's served the country for 200 years."
Britain is 'basically broken right now'
Mr Jenrick had emulated much of Reform's language around the state of the country in his speech to the Conservative Party conference, borrowing the phrase of his neighbour Lee Anderson and saying we needed to 'take our country back'.
He continued to sound rather similar to Reform in his interview with me, saying: "It's fair to say that, during my time as a minister, I came to the view that a lot of Britain is basically broken right now.
"If some people say that I've been radicalised then for sure, but I've been radicalised by the facts, by what's happening in the country right now."
Nigel Farage 'speaks for millions of people in this country'
The clearest sign that today was something of an inevitability came in Mr Jenrick's comments about Nigel Farage himself.
He said: "We know each other well and have very similar views on many issues. I think he speaks for millions of people in the country."