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Editorial: The extraordinary events of the shadow justice secretary’s firing and rehiring are a boost to the Tory and Labour leaders – but will only divide the right
Thursday 15 January 2026 21:11 GMT- Bookmark
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CloseJenrick explains Reform UK defection: ‘Nigel was a lone voice of common sense’
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Given that Robert Jenrick was pushed before he got the chance to jump across to Reform UK at a time and in a fashion of his own choosing, he and his new party leader decided that they may as well get on with it and face the media.
Indeed, Nigel Farage, in ironic jest, even thanked Kemi Badenoch for revealing their slow-moving bromance as if she’d played Cupid at this impromptu political wedding – she had brought the happy couple together, he suggested, and, joshing as ever, he offered to buy her lunch in return. It all sounded a little strained, as so much of Mr Farage’s jocularity often is.
That, however, was about as sweet as things got in the pair’s impromptu press conference. Mr Jenrick was far more bitter and twisted about his old colleagues than, say, the urbane Nadhim Zahawi had been a few days before.
Not only did he make a long, and predictable, statement about “broken Britain”: he launched, with the most cursory of courtesies, violent attacks on Sir Mel Stride and Dame Priti Patel, as well as needlessly betraying confidences shared in shadow cabinet meetings.
Mr Jenrick said that too many of his Conservative colleagues were “in denial” or “dishonest”. In return, his constituency chair in Newark said that the party workers there, who did so much to help Mr Jenrick hang on to his seat at the general election, felt “betrayed”.
It was, in every sense, a dismal afternoon, and was only enlivened (if that’s the right word) by Mr Farage setting a deadline of 7 May – the date local elections are scheduled to start – for further Tory defections, and promising that a Labour convert would be revealed next week.
In politics, it is often worth asking “Who’s using who?” In this case, it seems that Mr Jenrick has somehow managed to convince Mr Farage that he is the “real thing” and has been on a Damascene “journey”. As evidence, Mr Farage adduced Mr Jenrick’s popularity in surveys of Conservative Party members, and his status as the bookies’ favourite to be Tory leader.
The suggestion, repeated by Mr Jenrick himself, was that this new recruit to the Reform movement was making an enormous personal sacrifice, as well as experiencing a truly rare ideological epiphany. The truth is somewhat different.
Favourite or not, Mr Jenrick’s star has been falling – and Ms Badenoch’s rising – for some months. As the Tory leader has grown in confidence in both parliament and the country, she has inflicted some notable defeats on the government, and she has now begun to tease Sir Keir Starmer about his own precarious leadership. She pointed out to him at Prime Minister’s Questions that, unlike him, she’s “alright” – garnishing her assertion with the broad grin of a politician actually enjoying themselves.
Mr Jenrick’s chances of becoming leader have grown slimmer to the point where the possibility is now hardly entertained. All the TikToks and the party conference stunts seem only to have diminished his electoral appeal. As for his claim to be an ideological soulmate of Mr Farage, that, too, is far from compelling.
Mr Farage agreed with Mr Jenrick that the former minister gave a lot up when he resigned from Rishi Sunak’s government in December 2023 over the failure to “stop the boats” – a “point of principle”. Again, Mr Farage may be kidding himself. The timing of Mr Jenrick’s resignation in 2023 is illuminating: it came at a point of no return for the Tories, and – as was widely noted at the time – was a tactical move by Mr Jenrick to clean his hands before a leadership bid that would inevitably follow the crushing election defeat that duly arrived on 4 July 2024.
It was, however, a little too late, too cynical, and too obvious. Mr Jenrick was, in fact, a loyal centrist “Cameroon”, and supported Remain in the 2016 EU referendum. Until about a year ago, Mr Farage considered the man he has called “Robert Generic” a “fraud”. Mr Jenrick’s hard-right credentials are fairly recently acquired, and give rise to questions about what he’s really up to. The series of high-profile publicity stunts and barely concealed plotting since Ms Badenoch beat him to the top job has been an unedifying sight.
As by far the biggest Tory fish to have leapt over the rapids to Reform UK, Mr Jenrick is already facing speculation about his unquenchable leadership aspirations – this time in his new party.
Mr Jenrick, now in a weaker bargaining position than he would have wished, has little alternative but to swear unswerving loyalty to Mr Farage as the next prime minister and “last chance” for Britain, and to serve in whatever role he is allocated. But it is hard to imagine Mr Jenrick sublimating his own ambitions in favour of Mr Farage for very long. Conflict, followed by a Farage-Jenrick split over strategy and roles, remains all too predictable.
On balance, it is Ms Badenoch who ended the day in better shape than when this extraordinary saga began. She has further strengthened her position by visiting steely, swift retribution on Mr Jenrick, eliminating her main rival in the process.
Events have conspired to humiliate and diminish Mr Jenrick, even if he secretly still harbours the wish to “unite the right” under his leadership at some point in the future. Mr Jenrick and Mr Farage have just contracted something of a loveless, unequal and forced marriage, and the divorce is surely only a matter of time. Meanwhile, to the quiet delight of Sir Keir, the British right remains truly, madly and deeply divided.
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