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Tory leader Kemi Badenoch thanked Nigel Farage for doing her “spring cleaning” for her after her rival Robert Jenrick jumped ship to Reform UK, as she insisted the Conservative Party was united and “getting its act together”.
Reform leader Farage was “taking away my problems”, Badenoch told GB News. “The Conservative Party is . . . even more united and stronger, because we’ve lost someone who was not a team player.”
Badenoch’s comments come after a dramatic day in Westminster that saw former shadow justice secretary Jenrick ejected from the Conservative Party over allegations he had been “plotting” to defect to Reform in the most damaging way possible for the Tories.
Jenrick, who had challenged Badenoch for the leadership of the party in 2024, confirmed on Thursday that he first started having conversations with Reform in September, which quickly escalated into meetings and meals with Farage.
These conversations were being fed back to Badenoch by a mole in Jenrick’s team, according to people briefed on events.
Finally, on Wednesday the mole leaked extracts from a speech the shadow justice secretary was planning to give outlining how the Conservative Party had “broken” the country and calling on more Tories to follow his lead by defecting to Reform. The following morning, Badenoch sacked him.
The events have redrawn the battle lines on the right of British politics. Jenrick’s defection has fortified Reform’s position as a hardline anti-immigrant party representing those who believe the country is “broken” and heading towards catastrophe. Jenrick’s move is also widely expected to precipitate a larger number of defections to Reform ahead of local elections in May.
But it has also strengthened more moderate Tories’ resolve to fight on, with some arguing they will need to forge a new path with a more unifying message.
Badenoch said that Conservatives who were not loyal should follow Jenrick out of the door.
“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 . . . they should go,” Badenoch said on Friday. “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.”
Badenoch also accused the former shadow justice secretary of telling “a lot of lies”, adding that you “can’t believe a word that comes out of his mouth”.
Nick Timothy, who replaced Jenrick as shadow justice secretary, said on Friday that Badenoch had “drawn a line” under party infighting.
“The country is absolutely sick of the backbiting, the back-stabbing and, frankly, the lack of seriousness with which lots of politicians have taken the very serious and significant challenges that the country faces,” he told Sky News.
“And what Kemi did yesterday was draw a line under it all. She was decisive, she was proactive, and that’s actually how she handles all sorts of situations,” he added.
Former Tory cabinet minister David Frost said that the Tories and Reform were now “engaged in a street fight to the death”.
“Each party is trying to kill off the other and has no alternative to doing so. Politicians who try to build bridges are likely to find it is career-ending,” he wrote in the Telegraph.