Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: BRITAIN’S former Conservative Party leadership candidate Robert Jenrick has defected to Nigel Farage’s right-wing Reform UK, saying the nation was broken and its two mainstream political parties rotten, reported Reuters.
Sacked by the Conservatives when his potential switch was leaked, Jenrick appeared alongside Farage at a press conference, the latest of 21 current or former Conservative lawmakers to join Reform. Farage’s anti-immigration party was ahead of both Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour and Kemi Badenoch’s Conservatives in polls before an election due in 2029 that could end the two-party system dominating for more than a century.
“The two main parties are rotten,” Jenrick, 44, said.
“They are no longer fit for purpose. They both broke Britain, and neither can fix it.”
Jenrick, who served in a number of senior government roles including immigration minister, was the second sitting Conservative lawmaker to switch to Reform, giving it six seats in Parliament. Badenoch had earlier announced Jenrick’s sacking from her policy team and suspension from the party after she received evidence showing he was planning to defect.
He lost to her in the 2024 contest to lead the main opposition party after their crushing national election defeat and was then, in an effort to reunite the Conservatives, given the role of justice spokesperson. The former centrist, who is a qualified lawyer, used that position to build a personal profile on issues like immigration and crime that many saw as a platform for a future challenge to Badenoch’s leadership.
Jenrick’s ousting comes days after former Conservative finance minister Nadhim Zahawi announced he had joined Reform.
Jenrick said he had not always agreed with Farage but described Britain as “on the brink” with welfare, immigration and net zero energy policy among the biggest problems.
Starmer’s press secretary dismissed Jenrick as a “failed” Tory that voters had rejected when they voted out the last Conservative government in July 2024.