Editor-In-Chief watches Jenrick Defect as Reform Courts the Conservatives

William Cash | 16th January 2026 | Comment, Politics
Robert Jenrick and Nigel Farage (Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images)
Robert Jenrick and Nigel Farage (Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images)

William Cash attends a dramatic Westminster press conference at which Robert Jenrick is inducted into Reform. But how many more Tory defections are good for the party?

At the Tory conference back in October, Robert Jenrick spoke at a fringe meeting about how he had taken up karate and reading Dickens a way of biding his time in Opposition; or perhaps more accurately, biding his time before launching a second leadership bid after losing out to Badenoch in 2024. When pressed, he mentioned A Tale of Two Cities, a novel known for its famous bloody execution scene with Dickens’s hero saying "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done” before his head is garrotted. The guillotine on Jenrick’s Conservative party career (a member since the age of 16) came down yesterday morning around 11 am when the Tory’s chief whip, Rebecca Harris, called Jenrick to say he had been busted plotting to defect to Reform, and that he was sacked as Justice Secretary as well as having his party membership suspended. After denying it, he then slammed the phone down. Minutes later, Badenoch released an online video saying Jenrick had been sacked because o...

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