Jenrick joins Reform UK and claims Labour and Tories ‘broke Britain’ as Farage rules out any more defections after May – politics live | Politics
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Labour and Tories ‘broke Britain’, Jenrick says
Jenrick says his first loyalty is to the country.
Turning [Britain] around will require each and every one of us to speak the truth, and not just to speak it, but to act.
What’s the truth? 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 … are committed to a set of ideas that have failed and are failing Britain.
Key events
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Jenrick defends lying to a journalist last about not planning to defect
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Farage says his talks with Jenrick pre-defection focused on what role Jenrick would have in team
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Jenrick says he does not support some sort of electoral deal with Tories
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Farage says Jenrick’s defection ‘big day in realignment of genuine centre-right’ in UK
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Farage says, after May elections, Reform UK won’t accept any more defectors from Tories
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Jenrick says Tories ‘in denial’, and won’t admit Britain is broken, and they were partly to blame
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Jenrick says Sunak’s cabinet agreed small boats plan they knew would not work, and ‘some even joked about it’
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Labour and Tories ‘broke Britain’, Jenrick says
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Jenrick says both main parties are ‘rotten’
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Jenrick says Britain has been in decline for decades
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Jenrick arrives to be welcomed into Reform UK by Farage
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Farage says Jenrick is joining party – but Jenrick does not appear on stage when Farage expects
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Tories release extracts from what they say is Jenrick’s draft resignation letter
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‘It’s time for the truth’ – Jenrick breaks post-sacking silence with brief message
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Jenrick ‘expected to defect to Reform UK imminently’, report claims
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Farage claims he has not decided yet if he will acccept Jenrick as defector
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What commentators are saying about Badenoch sacking Jenrick
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Badenoch risks ‘fatal weakening’ in her position by sacking Jenrick, former Tory chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng claims
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Hollinrake says there is no way back into Tory party following his sacking for disloyalty
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Newark Tories back Badenoch’s decision to sack Jenrick, their MP
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Malcolm Offord, former Tory peer, says he won’t disclose his wealth, after being named as Reform UK’s Scottish leader
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Badenoch should publish evidence she claims to have that Jenrick about to defect, says former Tory cabinet minister
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‘This man is a fraud’ – what Farage said about Jenrick less than five months ago
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Starmer accuses Badenoch of ‘weakness’, saying Jenrick should have been sacked months ago for ‘toxic’ comments
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Labour chair says Badenoch has ‘lost control of party’ – while Labour MP praises her ‘strong leadership’ sacking Jenrick
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‘Treacherous’ Jenrick motivated to defect by ‘personal ambition’, Tory chair Kevin Hollinrake says
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Jenrick ‘completely out of his depth’ as minister, former Tory government colleague claims
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Evidence that Jenrick about to defect ‘totally irrefutable’, Tories say
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Farage claims he will announce Labour defection next week
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Farage claims Badenoch ‘panicked’, and that Reform UK was not planning to unveil Jenrick as defector later today
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Farage says ‘of course’ he has spoken to Jenrick, but Jenrick not ‘on verge’ of signing up to Reform
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Badenoch says Jenrick wanted his defection to be ‘most damaging’ to Tory party
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Kemi Badenoch sacks Robert Jenrick for ‘plotting to defect’
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Farage says Reform UK has already rejected “several” Tories how have applied to join.
Jenrick says that, when he woke up this morning, he had already decided to resign – but was not expecting to do it today.
Asked again about defecting out of ambition, Jenrick says given that he was favourite to be next Tory leader, this would be an odd move if he was just motivated by ambition.
Jenrick defends lying to a journalist last about not planning to defect
Camilla Tominey from the Telegraph says last week she wrote a column about the chance of Jenrick defection. She says she was in contact with what she describes as “sources close to you”. They said he would never defect.
She is implying that she contacted Jenrick, and he lied to him.
Jenrick says:
It’s no surprise that if you phone me, I don’t have to tell you everything you want for your column.
Tominey is more direct, and says he was lying last week. She suggests that shows people are right to view him as untrustworthy.
Jenrick replies:
I’m very sorry to disabuse you, since I thought you were a very experienced journalist, but politicians don’t have to reply to all the text messages, so they get sent by journalists. And I wasn’t going to give you the exclusive news of my decision.
But if you’re asking me the question about honesty, nobody in the Conservative party was more honest about the failings of the last conservative government than me.
Farage says what they are seeing today is a historic reuniting of people on the centre right.
Asked about Jenrick’s failures in government, Farage says in business it is normal for people to have some failures before they succeeed. He is interested in people who can learn from failure.
Farage says his talks with Jenrick pre-defection focused on what role Jenrick would have in team
Q: You talked about deals. So what was Jenrick offered?
Farage says:
I haven’t offered him a rank. I haven’t offered him a title. I haven’t offered him a position. I haven’t offered him money or anything like that.
We were in conversation, actively in conversation, as to what the best fit was for Robert as part of the front team, joining the people you see in front of you.
And a cynic would say his position was weakened. But you know what? I’m carrying on the conversation now in exactly the same spirit as I did before.
Q: Would you accept Kemi Badenoch?
Farage says let’s see. But he again urges Tories to defect before 7 May.
But he does not think Badenoch will be applying, he says.
Q: Last summer you said Zia Yusuf should be kicked out of Reform. How will you smooth over relations?
Jenrick says people say all sorts of things. He has been called worse. He says he has the highest respect for people who have built this party.
Farage says Yusuf blames everyone involved in the 2019 Tory government; he claims he is teaching him the virtues of forgiveness.
Q: How did you get caught?
Jenrick says he does not want to discuss that.
He woke up this morning as the most popular Tory cabinet minister in the ConservativeHome poll, and the bookies’ favourite to be next Tory leader.
You do not do this sort of thing lightly, he says.
Jenrick says he does not support some sort of electoral deal with Tories
Jenrick says he does not support a pact with the Conservatives.
Earlier this year, at a private dinner, Jenrick suggested that there would have to be some sort of deal between the two parties if they were both viable at the time of the next election, because otherwise there was a risk of Labour winning.
He says the Tories do not understand the mistake they made, and have not repented.
Q: [To Farage] Jenrick is very ambitious. He stood for leader. Do you trust him?
Jenrick takes the question. He says he “put aside my own personal ambition” when he joined the party. He will be working to make Nigel Farage PM.
Jenrick says he will not stand down and fight a byelection as a Reform UK candidate.
Farage says Jenrick’s defection ‘big day in realignment of genuine centre-right’ in UK
Farage says:
I believe is a big day in the realignment of the genuine centre-right of this country, I think Rob coming will bring a lot, lot more people and voters to us.
He says he was not sure this would come off. He says these deals sometimes don’t.
(That seems to contradict what Jenrick said a few minutes ago – see 5.10pm.)
He says Jenrick will join the frontline team.
And he will be announcing new jobs soon.
He says he and Jenrick are on “exactly the same page on virtually everything” now, even though that was not the case in the past.
Q: [From GB News’ Christopher Hope – to Jenrick] What have you been offered? And how are you feeling?
Jenrick says nothing has been offered. He is just here to play his part.
It is a sad day for him to leave a party he has been in for so long.
And he knows there are good people in the party, he says. He went round the country meeting them – doing more than 100 events last year.
He says Reform is there for anyone who thinks the party has to be turned around.
Q: [From the BBC’s Chris Mason] You were late for your own defection. When did you make up your mind? You were sitting in the shadow cabinet only yesterday.
Jenrick says there were not many Tories in Wolverhampton when he joined as a 16-year-old.
When he went to the Home Office, he realised it was not functioning.
He tried to change it from within.
When he failed, he left government.
He says it is time to put the country first.
Farage says, after May elections, Reform UK won’t accept any more defectors from Tories
Farage and Jenrick are now taking questions.
Q: [To Farage – from the BBC’s Chris Mason] Doesn’t this make it look as if you are the Tories 2.0?
Farage says Jenrick is “in sackcloth and ashes” over his record. He says Jenrick resigned from the Tory government.
He says there are other Tories who want to come. But there are some of those people that he does not want, he says.
He says, after 7 May (the Scottish, Welsh and local elections), the doors will be closed for defectors to Reform UK from the Tories.
Jenrick ends by saying he is joining Reform because they believe in real change.
But he and Farage don’t agree on everything, he says.
Jenrick goes on to criticise Priti Patel in particular for her record as home secretary. She is now shadow foreign secretary.
Now, the people I’m about to mention are all decent people. But because I’m here today, I need to explain myself.
The shadow Chancellor, Mel Stride, has rightly attacked Labour for hiking taxes to fund more scrounging. But there’s just one problem. He was the cabinet minister who oversaw the explosion of the welfare bill. And it was him who blocked the reforms that are needed.
Priti Patel, the shadow foreign secretary, created the very migration system that enabled 5 million migrants to come here. The greatest failure of any British government in the post-war period. When asked about this last year, she defended her actions. She doesn’t believe she did anything wrong.
