Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick have each penned opposing pieces for Express readers after a dramatic few days of political intrigue in Westminster.
Robert Jenrick and Kemi Badenoch (Image: Getty/PA)
Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick have each vowed to rescue Britain from Labour’s grip following their explosive split.
In duelling articles for the Express, both promised to fight for the country’s future after one of the most dramatic days in Westminster.
The turmoil erupted on Thursday when shadow cabinet minister Mr Jenrick defected to Reform UK, hours after Mrs Badenoch publicly sacked him on social media.
Writing in the Daily Express, the Conservative Party leader said: “Conservatives know Britain cannot be fixed with slogans or grievance politics. It will be fixed with credible, conservative solutions. I will not talk this country down when I know how great it can be. I will tell the truth about what is broken – and then I will fix it.
“Britain has faced harder moments than this and emerged stronger every time. Labour are making a terrible mess of the country but, as we have done throughout history, I am confident the Conservative Party will be ready to clean up that mess. We have the team, the plans and the experience to ensure we can get Britain working again.”
Mr Jenrick insisted his defection to Nigel Farage’s party was “uniting the right” as he said he had put the country before his allegiance to the Tories.
The former immigration minister said: “My decision to defect to Reform was difficult, but it was undoubtedly the right one.”
He added: “Since the election, I fought to get the Conservative Party to change, first as a leadership candidate and then from within the shadow cabinet.
“But, over time, it has become clear to me, having seen it up close, that the Conservative Party is too broken to change. There are some very good people in the party, but they are outweighed by people who just don’t get it or are in denial.
“The generations that came before us built a great country. But right now, we’re set to lose it.
“The moment calls for us to set personal ambition aside, speak the truth and act accordingly.”
A YouGov poll done after it was announced that Mr Jenrick had joined Reform UK showed a seven point drop in the proportion of 2024 Conservative voters who hold a favourable opinion of him.
Kemi Badenoch attacks Jenrick over defection to Reform
Mr Jenrick’s positive favourability rating amongst these voters fell from 30% last October to 23% today.
One in five (21%) Conservative voters held an unfavourable opinion of the Newark MP in October, while two in five (39%) do so today.
Meanwhile three in ten Reform voters (30%) had a favourable opinion of Jenrick last October, and slightly more (32%) do today.
Back in October, a quarter (25%) of Reform voters had an unfavourable opinion of Jenrick, while 22% do today.
In an interview with the BBC on Friday, Mr Jenrick denied that personal ambition had played a role in his defection to Reform after he was sacked from the shadow cabinet.
Arguing that nobody could “seriously make that argument”, he said he hoped Thursday would be remembered as “a time when the right united, when people put aside party loyalties and came together to fix our country”.
But his former leader Mrs Badenoch, said she was happy to see him go, describing him as “not a team player” and “Nigel Farage’s problem”.
Although both he and Mr Farage have said his defection had not been planned for Thursday, Mr Jenrick told the BBC he had “resolved” to go during the Christmas break.
But the “final straw” had come during a shadow cabinet away day last week, in which he had argued with fellow frontbenchers about whether Britain was “broken”.
He said some colleagues had agreed with him that Britain was broken but argued they could not say so publicly because the Conservatives were responsible.
Mr Jenrick said he had not misled people over his plans, adding: “I have been honest with the British people, and that’s what matters to me.”
But speaking on a visit to Aberdeen on Friday, Mrs Badenoch called him a liar as she ruled out any pact with Reform ahead of the next election.
She said: “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?”
Mrs Badenoch added that Mr Farage had done her “spring cleaning” for her.
She said: “The problems are going, we are even more united than we were because we’re a stronger team… Robert Jenrick was not a team player.”
When asked if any more “spring cleaning” needed to be done in her party’s ranks, she said that anyone interested in “psychodrama” should go.
But she told Sky News she is “100% confident” no further members of her shadow cabinet will defect.
Mr Farage imposed a May 7 deadline to anyone considering a defection to Reform – the day local elections take place.
He also said a Labour figure is expected to defect to his party on Tuesday next week.
The Reform UK leader told journalists at a press conference on Thursday how he had been talking to “many, many other senior Conservative figures and incidentally some Labour ones as well.”
Mr Jenrick’s defection is the latest in a number of prominent Tories to cross the house.
The former Conservative Party vice-chair Lee Anderson became Reform’s first ever MP after switching sides in March 2024. Later that year former Tory MP Dame Andrea Jenkyns also defected. Others include David Jones, Sir Jake Berry, Nadine Dorries, Jonathan Gullis and earlier this month former Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi.
The first sitting Tory MP to defect was Danny Kruger.
