Robert Jenrick has been sacked from the shadow cabinet and suspended from the Conservative party after Kemi Badenoch said she was presented with “irrefutable evidence” that he was planning to defect from the party.
The shadow justice secretary was Badenoch’s leadership rival and had long been said to be prepared do a deal with Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.
Badenoch did not name the party to which Jenrick was planning to defect, but sources confirmed it was Reform UK, and criticised him for putting personal ambition above loyalty. Farage is due to give a press conference in Westminster on Thursday afternoon, but has denied it was about Jenrick’s defection.
Westminster sources said Badenoch had been monitoring Jenrick’s activities for some time because of suspicions he was working to undermine the party and they believed his defection to Reform was imminent.
They said their concerns were confirmed by the indiscreet activities of some of Jenrick’s unofficial aides, known internally as the “grid of shit” plotters because of their efforts to depose Rishi Sunak.
Parts of a potential resignation speech were said to have been left unattended, leading senior Tories to believe that a defection was imminent – though Farage has said it was not.
The speech included “vicious” criticism of the Tory shadow chancellor, Mel Stride; the shadow defence secretary, James Cartlidge; and the shadow foreign secretary, Priti Patel, one source said. Several Tory MPs have said Badenoch should publish the speech, though the Conservatives have so far declined to do so.
Farage and Jenrick are understood to have had dinner last month, according to Tory sources, but Farage said there had been nothing agreed between the pair.
Badenoch said in a statement: “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.”
Badenoch is understood to have declined to speak to Jenrick directly, leaving his sacking to Rebecca Harris, the Conservative chief whip.
Jenrick, a former immigration minister, has built a sizeable social media following, and any move to Reform would be the most high-profile defection so far for a sitting MP, after the previous move of the shadow minister Danny Kruger.
In a video posted on X, Badenoch said she was determined to end the vicious cycle in the Conservative party of constant betrayals. “When I was elected leader, I committed to doing politics differently. Disloyalty and dishonesty undermine trust in politics,” she said.
“When individuals choose to walk away from that effort for personal ambition, that tells you nothing about the Conservative party and everything you need to know about them.”
One shadow cabinet minister said Jenrick had become more and more frustrated as Badenoch’s popularity had begun to grow after the Tory conference. “Sad, but we all know why he was going to go – no vacancy at the top of the Tories. Now Farage will need to watch his back,” they said.
Speaking in Scotland earlier on Thursday, Farage has said that “of course” he had had conversations with Jenrick. “Was I on the verge of signing a document with him? No. But have we had conversations? Yes.”
Farage claimed Badenoch “panicked” and believed the defection was sewn up. “I suspect she’s added up two and two and made five. I can confirm – hand on heart, honestly, look you in the eye – I was not going to be unveiling Robert Jenrick at 4.30 this afternoon,” he said.
He suggested he would speak to Jenrick later on Thursday – but dangled the possibility that he would not accept him. “The worries I get from within Reform are, one: will they bring Tory infighting with them? Because we had four-and-a-half years of psychodrama with that last Conservative government,” he said.
“They fought each other in public, they fought each other in private. And so if people want to bring that with them, they’re not wanted by our membership, they’re not wanted by our board, and they’re not wanted by me.
“We will not be a Tory party 2.0 because we have a completely different set of policies and people [who join] have to say they admit that net zero, mass migration, North Sea taxes and many other things were a terrible mistake. They have to make real mea culpas.”
Conservative MPs praised Badenoch’s decision to act decisively. “The Conservatives tried over many years to manage discontent however disloyal it was – that approach ultimately did not work.
“Robert is a highly talented man and this is a great shame but Kemi Badenoch is 100% right to define much more clearly the terms and conditions of being part of the Conservatives’ team,” the former chief whip Julian Smith said.
Labour’s party chair, Anna Turley, called it “the latest sad soap opera episode from a chaotic Conservative party that is sliding deeper and deeper into irrelevance.
“Kemi Badenoch was too weak to sack Robert Jenrick when he complained about not seeing white faces in Birmingham. She defended him over his disgusting comments while he was plotting to defect. That tells you everything you need to know about her judgment.”
