Robert Jenrick latest: Badenoch brands Tory defector a ‘liar’ in blistering attack on Farage’s new MP

Political correspondent for The Independent Athena Stavrou reports:

Robert Jenrick has confirmed that news of his departure was leaked by a member of his own team.

“I was told there was a young person who did this,” he told the BBC.

On Thursday, it was widely reported that a member of his own team had leaked the plans to Kemi Badenoch’s office, allowing the Tory leader to step forward and publicly dismiss him.

He added: “But I don’t know all the details and frankly it doesn’t really matter to me. I had decided to do it beforehand.”

Political correspondent for The Independent Athena Stavrou reports:

Robert Jenrick has said he has “no idea” whether any of his former Tory colleagues will follow his lead in defecting to Reform UK.

Asked how many Conservative colleagues he thought would follow him, he told the BBC: “I have no idea and I haven’t spoken to my colleagues or asked them to do it.”

He said he believed many in the Conservative Party were “good people” but that “the majority of MPs in Westminster don’t believe the things I believe”.

He added: “We’ll have to see that ultimately it’s a decision for them; it’s deeply personal. And then it’ll be a decision for Nigel and reform about whether they can be accepted or not.”

Robert Jenrick said the decision to leave the Conservative party, which he has been a member of since his youth, was “very difficult” for him.

“I agonized over it,” he told the BBC.

He added that there would be no by-election in his Newark constituency following his departure, as some Conservatives in Newark had demanded.

Whitehall editor of The Independent Kate Devlin reports:

Kemi Badenoch says she is confident there will be no further departures from her senior team after Robert Jenrick joins Reform UK.

He has repeatedly insisted that Mr Jenrick is “no longer my problem, it’s Nigel Farage’s problem”. Sky News He made a campaign visit to Scotland ahead of the Holyrood elections in May.

Asked if he was sure there would be no more shadow cabinet defections, he said: “100% sure, we are a united team.”

Of Mr Jenrick, who was his shadow justice secretary until Thursday, he added: “We are a stronger, more united team. Because Robert Jenrick is not a team player.”

Robert Jenrick told the BBC that the final straw came for him when he sat around a table with the shadow cabinet discussing whether Britain was broken.

“We can’t say that because it was the Conservative Party that broke it,” he said.

Mr Jenrick added that he wanted to be “honest with myself and the country”.

He also said he had not misled voters, adding: “No, I have been honest with the British public, and that’s what matters to me”.

Robert Jenrick has said his departure for Reformation England was not motivated by political ambition but by the belief that it was “the right thing to do”.

Speaking to the BBC, Mr Jenrick said he hoped his decision would “unite the right” and urged the public to “rally behind Nigel Farage”.

He said he made the decision to join Reform “over a period of time” and said yesterday was a “big” day for him.

He added that he now believes he has joined a party that “really wants to fix this country.”

Political correspondent for The Independent Athena Stavrou reports:

Sadiq Khan has denied he is the Labor politician rumored to have defected to Reform Britain, describing Nigel Farage’s party as a “repository of failed, failed Tory politicians”.

The Mayor of London said he no longer “understood why anyone would vote for Reform” after Thursday’s chaotic departure, telling LBC: “I was interested in it before. I’m not interested in it anymore. So of course I’m not going to vote for reform.”

His comments came after Mr Farage claimed he would announce a Labor insider next week.

He explained: “If you go to a restaurant today and have to wait to be served, the service is poor, the bill is ridiculous, you get food poisoning and you see cockroaches running around on the floor.

“Would you go to the restaurant a few doors down next week with the same chef, the same staff, the same menu, the same cockroaches roaming the streets?”

Kemi Badenoch said she couldn’t make a deal with “liars” when asked about a possible deal with Reform UK following the departure of Robert Jenrick.

Asked if he could commit to the Conservatives going it alone at the next election, he told reporters in Scotland: “Yes. How do you make a deal with liars?”

“How do you deal with people who have been saying things that are clearly untrue not just for months, but for years?”

Asked if he had ruled out a potential deal with Nigel Farage’s party, he said: “I’ve ruled it out about a million times.”

He added: “Reform is taking in a lot of people who can’t find work elsewhere.

“They’re always recruiting people who have been sacked from government. So I say Nigel Farage is doing my spring cleaning.”

“The problems are going away, we are more united than before because we are a stronger team… Robert Jenrick was not a team player.”