Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has sacked shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick from the shadow cabinet and suspended him from the Conservative Party after Kemi Badenoch said she was presented with “irrefutable evidence” that he was planning to defect from the party.
Badenoch did not name the party to which Jenrick was planning to defect, but sources confirmed it was Reform UK, and criticised him for putting personal ambition above loyalty.
Westminster sources said Badenoch had been monitoring Jenrick’s activities for some time because of suspicions he was working to undermine the party, and they believed his defection to Reform was imminent.
They said their concerns were confirmed by the indiscreet activities of some of Jenrick’s unofficial aides, known internally as the “grid of shit” plotters because of their efforts to depose Rishi Sunak.
Farage and Jenrick are understood to have had dinner last month, according to Tory sources.
Badenoch said in a statement: “I have sacked Robert Jenrick from the shadow cabinet, removed the whip and suspended his party membership with immediate effect.
“I was presented with clear, irrefutable evidence that he was plotting in secret to defect in a way designed to be as damaging as possible to his shadow cabinet colleagues and the wider Conservative party.
“The British public are tired of political psychodrama and so am I. They saw too much of it in the last government, they’re seeing too much of it in THIS government. I will not repeat those mistakes.”
