Good morning. Kemi Badenoch said she had seen “clear, irrefutable evidence”, Keir Starmer said she should have acted months ago, and Nigel Farage insisted – “hand on heart, honestly, look you in the eye” – that Reform had nothing to do with it. Nevertheless, by Thursday afternoon Robert Jenrick was on stage with Farage as the highest-profile Tory defection to Reform UK so far.
Earlier, Jenrick – the former Conservative leadership candidate and shadow justice secretary – had been sacked from the shadow cabinet, stripped of the whip and suspended by Badenoch, and accused of plotting to defect “in a way designed to be as damaging as possible” to his colleagues and the wider party. He, in turn, described the Conservatives as “rotten” and “failed”.
