Friday briefing: How the Robert Jenrick saga exposes a hollowed out Tory party
Good morning. Kemi Badenoch said she had seen “clear, irrefutable evidence”, Keir Starmer said she should have acted months ago, and Nigel Farage insisted – “hand on heart, honestly, look you in the eye” – that Reform had nothing to do with it. Nevertheless, by Thursday afternoon Robert Jenrick was on stage with Farage as the highest-profile Tory defection to Reform UK so far. Earlier, Jenrick – the former Conservative leadership candidate and shadow justice secretary – had been sacked from the shadow cabinet, stripped of the whip and suspended by Badenoch, and accused of plotting to defect “in a way designed to be as damaging as possible” to his colleagues and the wider party. He, in turn, described the Conservatives as “rotten” and “failed”. For today’s newsletter I spoke to Kiran Stacey, the Guardian’s policy editor, about how the move blindsided political journalists – and what it tells us about Farage’s strategy for turning Reform into a credible election-winning machine, and Badenoch’s strategy for surviving as Conservative leader. First, the headlines. Five big stories Iran | Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and Oman urged Donald Trump not to launch airstrikes against Iran in a last-minute lobbying campaign prompted by fears that an attack by Washington would lead to a major and intractable conflict across the Middle East. Greenland | The Danish prime minister said Greenland’s defence was a “common concern” for the whole of Nato, as a result of Donald Trump’s threats to take the Arctic island by force. Venezuela | The Venezuelan opposition leader, María Corina Machado, said she “presented” her Nobel peace prize medal to Donald Trump after meeting him in the White House. Space | Four astronauts from the International Space Station have returned to Earth a month earlier than planned after one developed a serious medical condition onboard the orbiting outpost. UK news | Campaigners have accused BP of having an insidious influence over the teaching of science, technology, engineering and maths (Stem) in the UK through its relationship with the Science Museum. In depth: ‘We haven’t had a marmalade-dropper like this for a long time’
If Reform UK’s standing in the polls continues, a steady stream of low-level Tory defections has seemed inevitable – and recent events suggest it is already under way, with the former Tory chancellor Nadhim Zahawi defecting on Monday. But the defection of Robert Jenrick is something else: a high-profile scalp, and the kind of moment designed to make Reform look less like a protest movement and more like a government-in-waiting. *** The lobby has been blindsided Jenrick has been MP for Newark since 2014, having launched a bid to be leader of the party in 2024, coming second to Badenoch. What most struck Kiran – and a lot of other political journalists – was how suddenly this news landed. “It’s very rare that you get completely blindsided,” Kiran tells me. “It used to be much more the case during the Brexit years and then towards the end of the Conservative time in government that you would get hit by a surprise.” Keir Starmer promised to “bring back politics as normal”, Kiran says, and while we haven’t quite got to normal, we also haven’t had many genuine Westminster “bombshells” of the old kind lately. That’s why it felt so startling, he says, to get news of a video Badenoch posted on social media, announcing Jenrick’s dismissal. The news broke so abruptly that it blew up a recording session for the Politics Weekly podcast that Kiran was set to do. “Just as we hit record I saw the message. We haven’t had a marmalade-dropper like this for a long time.” *** How did the day unfold? There had been speculation that Jenrick was at least flirting with Reform UK. But within the Conservative party, it was still business as usual. A few days ago Jenrick had spoken at length with Badenoch about party strategy. The previous week, he had attended a shadow cabinet awayday, taking copious notes. There was no public sign a rupture was imminent. That changed when senior figures in Badenoch’s office were sent what they were told was Jenrick’s entire draft resignation speech, along with an accompanying media plan. According to party sources, the document urged other Conservatives to defect alongside him, accused the party of having “lost its way”, and singled out senior shadow cabinet colleagues for criticism including Priti Patel and Mel Stride. For Badenoch’s team, that was the end. Shortly after 11am on Thursday, Badenoch released a video statement announcing that Jenrick had been dismissed from the shadow cabinet, stripped of the whip and suspended from the party. The message was also emailed directly to party members, framing the move as an effort to end years of internal psychodrama. The timing was deliberate. Badenoch’s statement landed just as Farage was facing journalists at a previously scheduled press conference in Scotland, forcing the Reform leader to respond in real time. Farage insisted there was no deal in place and accused Badenoch of panicking, saying she had “added up two and two and made five”. But by mid-afternoon what had begun as a pre-emptive strike by Badenoch ended as a chaotic, public crossing of the floor, with Farage presenting the former Tory – a man he once described as “a fraud” – to the press as a member of Reform. *** What did Jenrick say about the Tories? When Jenrick eventually appeared at the press conference – delayed after getting lost in the corridors of Millbank Tower and stuck one floor below the room where journalists were waiting – he did not mince his words about his former party. The Conservatives in Westminster, he said, “aren’t sorry, they don’t get it, they haven’t changed, they won’t change, they can’t change”. “In opposition, it is easy to paper over these cracks,” he went on, “but the divisions and delusions are still there. I can’t in good conscience stick with a party that has failed so badly. “What’s the truth?” asked a man who had served as a minister under Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak. “Both Labour and the Conservatives broke Britain. Both parties are committed to a set of ideas that have failed Britain.” Jenrick insisted his move was not about personal advancement, denying any leadership ambitions in his new party. “No one joins Reform unless they believe Nigel Farage is the best person to lead this country,” he said. “That’s why I’ve put aside my personal ambition.” *** Where does this leave Badenoch? Initially, with the abrupt sacking, Kiran suggests it looked like Badenoch might have done well. “She looked pretty decisive,” Kiran tells me. “She looked like she was taking control of her party. She looked like she was kind of daring anybody else who is going to challenge her to come out with it right now. “This is one of those one of the few moments I think in the last few months really where Kemi Badenoch has done anything to tackle Reform head on, to try and get ahead of them.” That good feeling may not have lasted the day in the Badenoch camp, which must now be braced for potentially more defections. Kiran profiled some of the likely candidates – Jacob Rees-Mogg, Brandon Lewis, Suella Braverman, Katie Lam – although one potential Reform target, Nick Timothy, has stepped straight into Jenrick’s old shadow cabinet job, which would seem to rule him out of the equation for now. Badenoch subsequently denied this was “a very bad day” for her. She said defections to Reform were evidence that “a lot of people have gone into politics for the wrong reasons”. “People who go into politics because they think it’s a gravy train, or because they think it’s a way to get on TV, are finding out that the Conservative party is not the party for them,” she said. “And they’re going to the party that is for people like that. Robert Jenrick is not my problem any more. He’s Nigel Farage’s problem now.” *** Why does Farage want so many ex-Tories? Labour’s line is simple to see: Starmer’s critique is that Badenoch tolerated Jenrick’s “toxic” politics for months – Jenrick was heavily criticised in October for complaining about visiting an area of Birmingham where he “didn’t see another white face” and said it was not the kind of country he wanted to live in – and that Farage is welcoming a “flood” of failed Tories into his ranks. The Reform leader doesn’t see that as a problem though. “I don’t think Farage needs to prove to Reform voters that they are the change party, or that he’s different,” Kiran tells me. “I think he’s already done that.” The bigger target for him is the set of voters Reform needs to win an election. Kiran characterises them as “voters who might agree with Reform on a lot of things – particularly immigration – but worry that they’re not to be trusted, that they can’t do what they say, and they’ll mess up the economy.” For that group, Kiran argues, established former ministers are a feature, not a bug: they make Reform look less like a pressure group who inherited the Brexit party and Ukip members who David Cameron once famously described as “fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists mostly”, and more like a serious operation capable of governing. He may have drawn a line though. Farage said that after the 7 May local elections there would be no more Tory defections, and Reform would reject more seeking to join. He also promised that, on that date, the Conservative party would cease to become a national party. *** What now for Jenrick? It wasn’t a surprise that Jenrick wasn’t loyal to his party leader – he’d already once resigned as immigration minister, flouncing out of Sunak’s government to make a point that he didn’t think the doomed and costly Rwanda scheme went far enough. He will now hope for a nice job on the Reform front benches. Farage said over the course of the next few weeks his party would begin to allocate jobs and responsibilities to key people. Jenrick is understood to have discussed the party’s economic policies with Farage, but any appointment as its economic spokesperson could cause tensions with the party’s deputy leader, Richard Tice, and Zia Yusuf, the head of policy, who are also potential contenders. In the end, Thursday’s events showed just how unsettled the politics of the right has become. Badenoch moved to protect her party, Farage took a prize he hadn’t quite planned for, and Jenrick leapt in a way that made his ambition impossible to ignore – however much he protested. What happens next will matter less for one man’s career than for whether Reform can turn defections into credibility – and whether the Conservatives can stop the slow hollowing-out that made this day possible in the first place. What else we’ve been reading
Today’s mood of national crisis echoes the 1980s, Martin Kettle writes in his final column. But those moods did not last then, and will not last now. Better times will come. We could all do with remembering that. Aamna I was a ZX Spectrum kid, but Keith Stuart’s review of the new Commodore 64 Ultimate is tempting me to relive the nostalgia of going round a mate’s house to play Uridium and Spy vs Spy. Martin I’m loving the Guardian’s new series The Pub That Changed Me. Tim Jonze writes here on the (just about) functioning toilets at the Park Tavern. Aamna Green Day bassist Mike Dirnt has picked his 13 favourite records for the Quietus, and inadvertently explained how time works in middle age by describing a 10-year-old album as “new”. Martin My colleagues in Australia have put together this informative visual guide illustrating the speed, scale and destruction of Victoria’s bushfires this year. Martin Sport
Tennis | Emma Raducanu ended her preparations for the Australian Open with a miserable 6-2, 6-4 defeat by Taylah Preston, a 20-year-old Australian wildcard, in the quarter-finals of the Hobart international. Rugby union | Scott Robertson has stepped down as New Zealand coach after an internal review of the All Blacks’ performance. Piracy | The number of illegal streams of sports events in Britain has more than doubled to 3.6 billion in the past three years according to a new report, which provides a stark illustration of the challenge facing broadcasters. Something for the weekend Our critics’ roundup of the best things to watch, read, play and listen to right now
TV Hijack season two | ★★★★☆ Idris Elba is back as Sam Nelson, the business negotiator who saved a hijacked plane in 2023’s Hijack. That seven-hour thriller saw the non-policeman-or-pilot Sam use his extreme negotiating skills to foil a crime syndicate plotting a short-selling scheme, securing the landing of Kingdom Flight 29 despite boring family scenes. Now, Sam Nelson is on an underground train in the Berlin metro, heading to a meeting with a German government official, and “shenanigans” ensue. Lucy Mangan Music Robbie Williams: Britpop | ★★★★☆ Robbie Williams’ new album initially revisits his ex-boyband sound, now with confidence, featuring Tony Iommi on “Rocket”, while the swaggering “Spies” echoes 90s hedonism. But just as you think you’ve got the general idea of the album, it unravels, and shifts to incorporate synth-pop (“Morrissey”), 60s/70s bubblegum pop (“It’s OK Until the Drugs Stop Working”), and the beautiful electronic ballad “Human” featuring Chris Martin. Despite the conceptual disconnect from the Britpop theme, the album remains engaging. Alexis Petridis Film 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple | ★★★★☆ It’s very rare for a fourquel to be the best film in a franchise, but that’s how things stand with the chequered 28 Days Later series. In this one, which follows immediately on from the previous episode, 28 Years Later, Ralph Fiennes and Jack O’Connell bring pure death-metal craziness. There is real energy and drama in this latest iteration of the post-apocalyptic zombie horror-thriller saga, created by director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland back in 2003, with Nia DaCosta taking over directing duties for this film. Fiennes’s dance to Iron Maiden’s The Number of the Beast is basically one of the most extraordinary moments of his career. Peter Bradshaw Theatre The Storm Whale | ★★★☆ The Storm Whale, an adaptation of Benji Davies’s 2013 picture book and its sequel, depicts Noi and his fishing-father’s cozy, seaside home, opening with a romantic tribute to the ocean setting. Despite the idyllic designs, the story focuses on Noi’s loneliness while his father is away. Noi befriends a washed-up whale before realising he must free it. Director Matt Aston’s adaptation, aimed at ages four to eight, sensitively explores how solitude can be overcome, expanding the backstory to include lessons from Noi’s deceased mother. While the script is touching, its earnest messages and solemn dialogue occasionally become repetitive. Chris Wiegand The front pages
“Sacked Jenrick defects to Reform with fiery attack on ‘failed’ Tories” is the Guardian splash. Elsewhere, it’s all Robert Jenrick. “Jenrick: Tories broke Britain” is top story at the Telegraph, the Mirror has “Farage’s party of Tory failures” and i paper runs “Day of poison and betrayal as UK’s right-wing feud deepens”. “Jenrick joins Reform after Badenoch gives him sack for plotting to defect” is the FT lead, the Mail has “Stop fighting each other and end the Labour nightmare” and the Sun splashes with “TraiTories”. The Times says “Jenrick defects to Reform after sacking by Badenoch”. Today in Focus
Is ICE out of control? Its agents outnumber police on the streets of Minneapolis, are detaining US citizens and clashing violently with protesters. Caitlin Dickerson and Maanvi Singh report. Cartoon of the day | Ben Jennings
The Upside A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad
Laura Hall spent a year swimming in the Nordic countries. As a journalist covering Scandinavia, the travel side was easy; all she had to do was pack her kit wherever she went on assignment. As the year went on, her swimming confidence grew. She met dippers dressed as mermaids, whirlpool swimmers, lighthouse swimmers and a lot of naked swimmers. She met people setting themselves big swimming challenges, and those who make a daily practice of submerging themselves in the water for their health and for fun. After a year of swimming in some of the world’s coldest seas, Hall learned a lot about her ability to do hard things. She learned that doing things that make you feel alive, with other people who feel the same, is intoxicating. Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday Bored at work? And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow. Quick crossword Cryptic crossword Wordiply
