Robert Jenrick: Remain to Reform Driven by Unbridled Ambition

On Wednesday afternoon, in a wood panelled committee room at Westminster, Robert Jenrick sat alongside Kemi Badenoch and the rest of the Conservative shadow cabinet, discussing foreign policy. Those present recall him as upbeat and relaxed, even cheerful.

Robert Jenrick

Within 24 hours, he was out of the party he had joined as a teenager and publicly backing Reform UK, the Conservatives’ biggest electoral rival, after a dramatic leak from inside his own parliamentary office.

For months, Jenrick had been the subject of intense speculation about a possible defection. Senior Conservatives say Badenoch’s team had been on high alert, picking up what one described as “worrying signals” about his intentions.

“We’d been hearing from multiple people that he was on manoeuvres,” one senior Conservative said. “We knew about at least one evening meeting with Nigel Farage in December.”

Months of quiet talks

In reality, the conversations went far further. Reform figures say Jenrick had been in regular contact with the party for around four months, including repeated one to one meetings with Nigel Farage.

Was he promised a senior role in a future Reform government. A senior party source insists no. “Nothing was offered. Genuinely nothing,” they said.

The leak that forced the issue

The turning point came late on Wednesday afternoon. As Badenoch was wrapping up the shadow cabinet meeting, she was shown what advisers immediately recognised as explosive material, a draft of Jenrick’s planned defection speech, containing scathing attacks on fellow shadow cabinet ministers.

The document had come from someone with access to Jenrick’s Commons office. His allies do not dispute its authenticity, though they deny he was careless with it. “The speech never left Rob’s office,” one said. “It wasn’t left lying around.”

Badenoch swiftly gathered her closest advisers, including chief whip Rebecca Harris.

“My immediate reaction was that this was treachery,” said one person consulted that evening. “The easy thing would have been to wait and hope it blew over. That would have been a cop out, and Kemi does not cop out.”

Swift dismissal

Before dawn on Thursday, Badenoch made her decision. She recorded a video from home announcing that Jenrick had been sacked from the shadow cabinet and suspended from the Conservative Party, before boarding a flight to Scotland.

Later that morning, Jenrick was in his Westminster office when he received a call from Harris, informing him of the discovery. He denied wrongdoing and ended the call abruptly. Minutes later, Badenoch’s video went live.

Shortly after, Jenrick spoke briefly to Farage. “It was quick,” a Reform source said. “The sense was, we’re on, let’s do it today.”

Jenrick’s allies say the defection was the defining moment of his career and that he felt liberated once it was public. “Under immense pressure and with very little notice, he delivered his speech and took questions flawlessly,” one said. “No slip ups.”

They argue his move punctures the Conservative attack line that Reform is a one man band. “Rob is very serious,” one ally said.

Ambition and timing

Supporters of Badenoch counter that her improving poll ratings and stronger performances at prime minister’s questions meant Jenrick’s chances of challenging her leadership had all but vanished.

“This is not because Kemi is failing,” one shadow cabinet member said. “It’s because she’s succeeding. He has no route to the top before 2029, so why stay.”

The existence of a fully drafted defection speech suggests the decision had been made well before Badenoch acted. “Rob had decided,” said one person close to him. “It was always a question of when.”

Allies say his frustration had been building for months. He was criticised internally for speaking out on grooming gangs and for attacking the decision, taken under a Conservative government, to grant citizenship to British Egyptian activist Alaa Abd El Fattah.

The final rupture appears to have come at a shadow cabinet away day last week, during a discussion about whether Britain was “broken”.

“He was very withdrawn,” said one person present. “His chair was pushed back, he was taking lots of notes.”

Jenrick argued Britain was broken. Others agreed privately but warned that saying so publicly implied the Conservatives were responsible. The meeting took place overlooking the Tower of London, a detail not lost on some attendees later. “A traditional home of traitors,” one joked.

A long political shift

For years, Jenrick’s transformation from a David Cameron era Remain supporter into a hardline right winger failed to convince many colleagues, including Farage himself.

Only last year, Farage dismissed him as “a fraud”, questioning whether he stood for anything beyond personal advancement. Similar criticisms now come from former Tory colleagues, who say his politics follow the prevailing wind.

Columnist and former MP Matthew Parris remarked that if ambition were removed from Jenrick, “he would collapse like a boneless chicken”.

Privately, Jenrick insists his shift is sincere, rooted in his time as a Home Office minister, where he became disillusioned with what he saw as the party’s failure to curb migration. During that period, he ordered murals at an asylum centre to be painted over to make the building less welcoming and gained a reputation for ruthlessness.

Once close to Rishi Sunak, his resignation as immigration minister in late 2023, over the Rwanda deportation scheme not going far enough, was a heavy blow to Sunak. In the months that followed, his allies were linked to repeated interventions aimed at destabilising the prime minister.

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After the Conservatives lost the 2024 election, Jenrick emerged as a leadership contender, rebranding himself with weight loss, slick videos and a bigger online presence. But doubts about his loyalty and motives blunted his appeal to party members, who overwhelmingly chose Badenoch.

She kept him in the shadow cabinet as justice secretary, believing him less dangerous inside the tent. Publicly loyal, he nonetheless strayed beyond his brief, courting controversy with remarks about protesters, immigration and policing, and openly flirting with Reform.

At Westminster, some colleagues began calling him “Nigel’s chancellor”, despite his denials.

A new allegiance

Former Tory colleagues warn Farage that Jenrick’s ambitions and past scandals may yet cause problems, including his removal as housing secretary under Boris Johnson after a planning decision involving donor Richard Desmond was ruled unlawful.

But allies say Farage is unlikely to care. “He’s desperate for defections,” one former adviser said. “He’ll take people with baggage.”

Farage, for his part, has downplayed his earlier criticisms, saying he trusted Jenrick from the moment he quit Sunak’s cabinet. “We are on exactly the same page today,” he said, arguing that those who apologise should be forgiven.

When Jenrick finally took the stage, he spent more than 20 minutes attacking his former party before mentioning Farage or Reform. He ended by declaring that he had set aside his own leadership ambitions.

“I am convinced Nigel and Reform will deliver the real change we need,” he said, pledging loyalty to a new political home after a career defined, in the eyes of critics and allies alike, by restless ambition.