Within just a few hours of being publicly sacked from the shadow cabinet by Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, Robert Jenrick held a press conference to announce he was joining Reform. Badenoch cited “clear, irrefutable evidence” the Jenrick had been plotting to defect to Reform in a maximally damaging way.
In his press conference, Jenrick attacked his former party, painted a bleak view of the state of Britain and declared that Nigel Farage was the only person who could save it.
Jenrick has said that he doesn’t intend to trigger a by-election, which means the people of Newark, his constituency in the English East Midlands, have lost a Conservative MP and gained a Reform one. Newark will then, come a general election, become a test of Reform’s penetration into traditional Tory shire heartlands. Here, the 2024 election results already looked like a warning light: the Conservatives held on against Labour but Reform emerged as a meaningful third force. Newark is an affluent market-town and rural seat, where traditional Tory loyalty has long dominated.
