Closing summary
The “arsonists” who tanked the reputation of the Conservatives are still in charge of the party, Robert Jenrick has said as he and the Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, trade blows a day after his dramatic defection to Reform UK. Giving his first interview since his announcement on Thursday, the former shadow justice secretary said the Conservatives had not changed since the election, while defending himself against allegations of lying from his former party leader.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said Nigel Farage has done her “spring cleaning”, after Robert Jenrick defected to Reform UK. The Conservative party leader told GB News: “I’m just glad that Nigel Farage is doing my spring cleaning for me. He’s taking away my problems. The Conservative party is... even more united and stronger, because we’ve lost someone who was not a team player.”
In his interview with the BBC’s Laura Kunessberg, Reform’s Robert Jenrick defended his role in the previous Conservative government. He said he “always tried to challenge the system” and “worked like crazy” to bring down immigration numbers.
Labour said Robert Jenrick was “one of the arsonists who inflicted chaos and decline” on Britain while serving as a Tory minister under the previous government. Citing comments made by Nigel Farage before Jenrick defected to Reform UK on Thursday, Labour chairwoman Anna Turley said: “In the words of his new party leader: Robert Jenrick is a fraud. He himself is one of the arsonists who inflicted chaos and decline on Britain while the Tories were in government.”
Ed Davey said Robert Jenrick “helped wreck the NHS” while serving as a health minister in the previous Tory government. Responding to Jenrick’s BBC interview after his defection to Reform UK, the Liberal Democrat leader said: “People are fed up of hearing that Britain is broken from the very people like Robert Jenrick and Nigel Farage who broke it in the first place.”
Craig Guildford is to retire as chief constable of West Midlands police, the Guardian understands. His departure comes after an official inquiry found his force used “exaggerated and untrue” intelligence to justify a ban on Israeli football fans. The decision is scheduled to be officially announced at 4pm on Friday by the West Midlands police and crime commissioner, Simon Foster.
In other news, Nigel Farage has fallen victim to another prank on the paid video service Cameo, this time paying tribute to the child sexual abuse offender Ian Watkins. Cameo allows fans to pay celebrities to make personalised video messages, with the Reform party leader offering his services from £78.45. In a 27-second video posted online by John Smith, who requested the clip, Farage called the former Lostprophets singer, who was killed in prison last year, “a good man, a really good guy” who “loved his children”.
The “arsonists” who tanked the reputation of the Conservatives are still in charge of the party, Robert Jenrick has said as he and the Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, trade blows a day after his dramatic defection to Reform UK.
Giving his first interview since his announcement on Thursday, the former shadow justice secretary said the Conservatives had not changed since the election, while defending himself against allegations of lying from his former party leader.
He told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg on Friday: “I came to the conclusion over the course of the last year or so that … the party hadn’t changed, that the people who’d made those mistakes were still sat around the shadow cabinet table, the arsonists were still in control of the party, and that this was not a party that was capable of even understanding what it had got wrong, let alone fixing it.”
Jenrick insisted “I could not have been franker” about his intentions, despite telling the Conservative chief whip on Thursday he would never defect – an act that Badenoch said showed he “tells a lot of lies”.
In her own set of broadcast interviews hours earlier, Badenoch said: “You can’t believe a word that comes out of his mouth. This is a man who was asked yesterday morning, ‘Are you going to defect?’ And he said ‘never’ to the chief whip.”
She added: “People from Reform and other Conservative party members have been bringing stuff to me about the actions he had been doing to undermine the party, and I kept giving him a chance. So I’m just glad that Nigel Farage is doing my spring cleaning for me. He’s taking away my problems.”
The public row between the two former Tory leadership rivals comes as both parties digest the news of Reform’s most significant defection yet.
Jenrick’s move has been largely welcomed among Reform MPs and members, but also by some Conservatives who say it has strengthened Badenoch’s position in her own party.
West Midlands police chief to retire after Maccabi Tel Aviv fans ban row
Craig Guildford is to retire as chief constable of West Midlands police, the Guardian understands.
His departure comes after an official inquiry found his force used “exaggerated and untrue” intelligence to justify a ban on Israeli football fans.
The decision is scheduled to be officially announced at 4pm on Friday by the West Midlands police and crime commissioner, Simon Foster.
The pressure on one of Britain’s most senior chief constables has been intense after the basis for his force’s claims about the ban unravelled and the home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, said she had no confidence in him.
In the end Guildford decided the pressure was too much.
He had wanted to wait until at least 27 January, when his police and crime commissioner had called a meeting where the chief constable would be publicly questioned.
He has served 32 years as an officer and will retire on Friday, and be entitled to his full pension.
Guildford, 52, felt the intense row and criticism was a distraction unlikely to die down or go away.
The fallout led some of his fellow chief constables to believe he should go and that by clinging on Guildford was damaging the reputation of policing nationally and its standing with the public.
Foster accepted his decision, made on Friday.
Labour said Robert Jenrick was “one of the arsonists who inflicted chaos and decline” on Britain while serving as a Tory minister under the previous government.
Citing comments made by Nigel Farage before Jenrick defected to Reform UK on Thursday, Labour chairwoman Anna Turley said: “In the words of his new party leader: Robert Jenrick is a fraud.
“He himself is one of the arsonists who inflicted chaos and decline on Britain while the Tories were in government.
“Now he wants the public to believe he’d do a better job through Farage’s Reform. It’s a recipe for more of the same chaos that held our country back for far too long.
“While he and the other 23 failed former Tory MPs who have run off to Reform focus on their careers, Labour is focused on delivering the change working people voted for and cutting the cost of living.”
Sir Ed Davey said Robert Jenrick “helped wreck the NHS” while serving as a health minister in the previous Tory government.
Responding to Jenrick’s BBC interview after his defection to Reform UK, the Liberal Democrat leader said: “People are fed up of hearing that Britain is broken from the very people like Robert Jenrick and Nigel Farage who broke it in the first place.
“Robert Jenrick was a Conservative health minister who helped wreck the NHS, while Nigel Farage championed Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal which damaged the economy and increased the cost of living.
“Liberal Democrats will be the home for all those former Conservative voters who feel appalled by Nigel Farage and let down by Kemi Badenoch.”
Updated
In other news, Nigel Farage has fallen victim to another prank on the paid video service Cameo, this time paying tribute to the child sexual abuse offender Ian Watkins.
Cameo allows fans to pay celebrities to make personalised video messages, with the Reform party leader offering his services from £78.45.
In a 27-second video posted online by John Smith, who requested the clip, Farage called the former Lostprophets singer, who was killed in prison last year, “a good man, a really good guy” who “loved his children”.
He pretended to know Watkins, whose victims included a baby boy, and said he was “very much in contact with me”.
It follows a similar prank in 2021 when Farage unwittingly issued a message of support to the IRA, ending a birthday message with: “Up the Ra!”
When asked by Metro about the latest clip, Farage said: “Thank him for the money. There are lots of Ian Watkins. Tell him to send more. I did alter his request.”
Farage’s Cameo page claims to offer fans “a unique opportunity to receive personalised messages from the former UK politician and Brexit leader”. It adds: “His videos provide an entertaining and lighthearted way for fans to connect with him and his signature straight-talking, anti-establishment style.”
In his interview with the BBC’s Laura Kunessberg, Reform’s Robert Jenrick defended his role in the previous Conservative government.
He said he “always tried to challenge the system” and “worked like crazy” to bring down immigration numbers.
He said:
When I couldn’t persuade the government to do more, I resigned, I went onto the backbenches, and I started to campaign there.
But added:
I haven’t been perfect.
Jenrick tells the BBC that he made his decision to leave the Tories for Reform over Christmas.
However, he admits it was a decision made over several years and said the Conservatives had not changed.
He says he attended a cabinet meeting a week ago where it was discussed whether Britain is broken.
For those who believe it is broken, he says they said: “We can’t say it because it was the Conservative Party who broke it”.
Jenrick says his defection will 'unite the right'
Robert Jenrick is now speaking exclusively to Laura Kuenssberg at BBC News and says he hopes his defection will “unite the right”.
He said:
This is uniting the right. My message for millions of people in the country who stuck with the Conservative party, often through gritted teeth because like me they were deeply frustrated, angry even, about what happened.
They voted again in 2024 and many of those voters have now come to Reform over the course of the last year or so – but there are still people sticking with the party.
If you want to get rid of this Labour government and have a strong reforming government to fix the country, there is frankly only one way to do that … that is to vote for Nigel and rally behind him and Reform.
He says if right-wing voters don’t vote for Reform, they could end up with Keir Starmer as prime minister or even in coalition with the Greens and Lib Dems.
Updated
Badenoch rules out electoral pact with Farage's Reform
Kemi Badenoch has said she cannot do a deal with “liars” when asked about a possible pact with Reform UK in the wake of Robert Jenrick’s defection.
Asked if she could commit to the Conservatives going into the next election alone, she told reporters in Scotland: “Yes. How do you do a deal with liars?
“How do you do a deal with people who have been saying things that were clearly not true, not just for months, but clearly for years?”
Asked if she was ruling out a potential pact with Nigel Farage’s party, she said: “I have ruled it out about a million times.”
Badenoch went on to say that anyone in the Conservative party interested in “pyschodrama” should go.
Asked if she felt any more “spring cleaning” needed to be done in her party after Robert Jenrick’s defection to Reform UK, she told the Press Association: If they’re people who do not belong in our party, who think that it’s all a game and that people’s lives are a game, they just want all this psychodrama, then yes, they should go.
“We don’t want people like that in the Conservative party. They caused all the problems, and now people can see that the Conservative party is getting its act together.
“We are now a changed party under new leadership, and the people who can’t deal with that are leaving.”
Kemi Badenoch said Robert Jenrick is now “Nigel Farage’s problem” and that he creates “instability” wherever he goes.
The Conservative party leader told the Press Association that Tories who supported Jenrick feel “betrayed” he has joined Reform UK.
Asked if she thought he could do the same to Reform, she said:
Absolutely, he’s Nigel Farage’s problem. Now he and his acolytes are people who create instability wherever they go, and they can go do that in Reform.
They are a party that is just about people who want drama and intrigue - the public, quite frankly, are sick of this.
They’re sick of all this political psycho drama. We have it with Labour as well: everybody angling to be prime minister.
I’m getting on with the job and showing people what that what I’m doing is about public service, not personal ambition.
Badenoch: Jenrick 'tells a lot of lies' and you 'can't believe a word that comes out of his mouth'
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said Nigel Farage has done her “spring cleaning”, after Robert Jenrick defected to Reform UK.
The Conservative party leader told GB News: “I’m just glad that Nigel Farage is doing my spring cleaning for me.
“He’s taking away my problems. The Conservative party is... even more united and stronger, because we’ve lost someone who was not a team player.”
She also said her former shadow justice secretary “tells a lot of lies” and that you “can’t believe a word that comes out of his mouth”.
Updated
Farage's claim of Labour defection should be taken 'with pinch of salt', says Reeves
Nigel Farage’s promise of a Labour defection to Reform next week should be taken “with a pinch of salt”, Rachel Reeves has insisted.
Asked whether she was worried or if it was her, the chancellor told ITV Tyne Tees:
Nigel Farage says a lot of things and I think we should all take those with a pinch of salt.
Nick Timothy said Robert Jenrick’s defection to Reform UK had left the Conservatives with a feeling of “resolve” and the party in Westminster is now “more united under Kemi’s leadership than I’ve known it for many years”.
Asked about the prospect of further defections, the new shadow justice secretary told BBC Breakfast: “Well I can speak for myself, and I can tell you that I joined the Conservative party as a 17-year-old and I will die a member of the Conservative party.
“But the reaction yesterday in parliament was actually one of surprise that Rob would do this, but also resolve because the party, I think, is more united under Kemi’s leadership than I’ve known it for many years.
“And the reaction of my colleagues in parliament was to be impressed by the way Kemi handled the situation and pleased that she’s been so decisive.”
A bit more from work and pensions secretary Pat McFadden now.
He told Times Radio this morning there was “the same chaos and drama” on the right of politics as when the Conservatives were in power.
Asked how worried he was that the right is starting to unite after a number of Tory defections to Reform UK, he said: “I don’t think what we’ve seen in the last few days is evidence of the right starting to unite.
“On the contrary, I think it’s evidence that we’re seeing more of the same chaos and drama that’s been happening on the right, which so dominated our politics during the 14 years of the Conservatives’ period in power.”
He said Labour was focused on improving public services, adding: “These are not things that can be done with politicians engaged in an endless civil war.”
Lee Anderson has criticised the Conservative party as “totally out of touch with their membership and their voters” after Robert Jenrick became the latest Tory MP to defect to Reform UK.
The Reform chief whip became the party’s first sitting MP after he lost the Conservative whip in February 2024. He told GB News on Friday morning that Jenrick’s defection was a “big move for him”.
“We want the brightest and the very best from whatever field in this country to help us go in this country when we do win the election, whenever that may be,” Anderson said. “And Rob’s got great experience.
“He held his hand up yesterday, I thought he was brutally honest in the press conference.
“Probably he said a lot more than when I moved to Reform UK a couple of years ago, so fair play to Robert It’s a big move for him. Very brave, and he’s a great asset.”
Politics is re-aligning and Robert Jenrick had to get on the side of authenticity, is how Reform UK’s new Scotland leader Malcolm Offord explained yesterday’s extraordinary ejection/defection drama.
Offord would be forgiven for feeling sore after Jenrick overshadowed his own coronation as the party’s Scottish leader, less than four months out from crucial Scottish parliament elections and as five out of the last six polls have Reform in second place in terms of Holyrood voting intention.
Asked on BBC Radio 4 whether Jenrick’s inveterate plotting was something that appealed to voters, Offord said it had been “a matter of conscience” for his new colleague (and old colleague, given Offord recently defected from the Tories himself).
He said: “Robert has been on a journey. It’s not an easy journey to go on but at the end of the day you need to find the right home for the beliefs that you hold dear.”
Offord, a multimillionaire financier who refused yesterday to say how wealthy he is, claiming that was a private matter, also insisted he would “absolutely not” by shying away from challenging interviews in the future.
After Reform UK aides stepped in to wind up two interviews yesterday where Offord was being robustly questioned on camera by Sky and ITV, Offord said that “we’re a new party, a new set up so we have to learn our way”, and it was “unfortunate that happened”.
Meanwhile, Pat McFadden has insisted he was “not worried” after Nigel Farage suggested there was about to be a Labour defection to Reform UK.
The work and pensions secretary told Times Radio:
I’m not worried, and I don’t know if that will happen but if it does, it’s still a right-wing project. This is a project that parrots president Putin’s line on foreign affairs, we’ve seen that most recently over Ukraine.
It’s a project that doesn’t believe in the NHS. Nigel Farage himself has said that the model of the NHS is wrong. So whether it’s on foreign affairs or domestic affairs, this is a right-wing project and we will stand firmly against it.
Asked how worried he was that the government is failing to get its message out amid the focus on Reform UK, McFadden said:
I think when you’re in government, you control what you can control and you keep to the job, and that is starting to pay off.
He pointed to GDP figures released on Thursday and a fall in NHS waiting lists, saying:
I know there’s a lot more to do, and I know there’s more change that people want, but whatever the drama of what’s happening on the right of politics, those economic growth figures, those NHS waiting list figures, that’s what will make the difference to people in their daily lives.
Nick Timothy has also said too many politicians “lack seriousness” following the defection of his shadow cabinet predecessor Robert Jenrick to Reform UK.
Speaking to GB News, the new shadow justice secretary said he did not recognise the characterisation of the Conservative party Jenrick gave during a speech at a press conference on Thursday.
Timothy said:
One of the things about yesterday that I think was really important was the contrast between Kemi’s leadership as somebody who acted decisively and takes very seriously those challenges [which the country faces], and the sense of backbiting and backstabbing and the lack of seriousness that we see in too many politicians.
We saw it actually, to be fair, towards the end of our time in government before the 2024 general election.
We see it every day with this Labour government, constant speculation about the future of the prime minister, constant U-turns, constant clamouring by members of the Cabinet for the top job. And we see it in the Reform party as well.
But what Kemi showed was clarity of thought, strength of character and that’s the kind of leadership that the country needs.
New shadow justice secretary apologises after Jenrick's Reform defection
Hello and welcome to the UK politics live blog with me, Tom Ambrose.
This morning we start with follow-up and reaction to Robert Jenrick’s dramatic sacking from the Tories and subsequent – if not depressingly unsurprising – defection to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party.
The shadow justice secretary was Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch’s leadership rival and had been the bookies favourite to replace her after she failed to make any sort of impact on the polls.
Jenrick was sacked from the shadow cabinet and suspended from the Conservative party after Badenoch said she was presented with “irrefutable evidence” that he was planning to defect.
And so he did just hours later, wheeled out as Farage’s latest recruit to Reform, in what is fast becoming the political equivalent of Trigger’s broom, stacked with the former Tories they say broke Britain.
It comes as Nick Timothy said he was “sorry” for how the Conservatives “handled certain things in those last few years” in power.
The new shadow justice secretary told BBC Breakfast it was clear the country had been “let down by some of the things that happened”.
Asked whether he was sorry, Timothy said:
I’ve said as a Conservative I’m sorry for the way the party has handled certain things in those last few years and I’ve been very open about that since I was elected for the first time 18 months ago.
The Conservative party will not move on and not persuade people to vote for us in the future in the numbers that we need unless we do look them in the eye and say we understand why we lost that election.
Timothy added that Jenrick was “a friend of mine” but that the public were sick of “the backbiting and the backstabbing” in politics.
He said:
Yeah, Rob’s been a friend of mine for some time. It’s obviously disappointing that he’s decided to move on, but the thing is, what we learned yesterday is the clear contrast between the Conservatives led by Kemi Badenoch and the other parties and what they offer Britain today.
The public are sick of the backbiting and the backstabbing and the lack of seriousness in our political parties when the challenges that the country faces are so serious, Kemi was given irrefutable evidence of what was about to happen, and she acted very decisively.
Badenoch, meanwhile, is expected to speak to the media later this morning. Stay tuned for that when it drops.
