Tory-Reform struggle erupts as defector Robert Jenrick manufacturers ex-party ‘arsonists’

On Jan 16, 2026

Tensions between the right-wing parties exploded after Robert Jenrick was sacked by Kemi Badenoch before dramatically defecting to Reform, claiming the Tories had broken Britain

16:32, 16 Jan 2026Updated 16:32, 16 Jan 2026

The Tories and Reform are at war as Conservative turncoat Robert Jenrick declared “arsonists” were running his old party.

Tensions between the right-wingers exploded after Mr Jenrick dramatically defected to Reform on Thursday, claiming the Conservatives had broken Britain. Hours earlier, Kemi Badenoch sacked him from the Shadow Cabinet and kicked him out of the party after catching wind of his plans.

Today, Mr Jenrick mounted an extraordinary attack on his old colleagues as the parties traded blows. He told the BBC: “I came to the conclusion over the course of the last year or so that … the party hadn’t changed, that the people who’d made those mistakes were still sat around the shadow cabinet table, the arsonists were still in control of the party, and that this was not a party that was capable of even understanding what it had got wrong, let alone fixing it.”

The former Cabinet Minister, who lost to Kemi Badenoch in the 2024 leadership race, also raised eyebrows when he claimed he had put his personal ambitions aside to join Reform. Earlier, Ms Badenoch branded him a liar and ruled out a Tory-Reform pact 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?”

In a series of interviews, she said: “I’m just glad that Nigel Farage is doing my spring cleaning for me. He’s taking away my problems. The Conservative Party is… even more united and stronger, because we’ve lost someone who was not a team player.”

Ms Badenoch added: “Now he and his acolytes are people who create instability wherever they go, and they can go do that in Reform. They are a party that is just about people who want drama and intrigue – the public, quite frankly, are sick of this. They’re sick of all this political psychodrama.”

Former Tory Cabinet Minister Robert Buckland twisted the knife, telling TalkTV: “I’m sad that a former colleague of mine… has transmogrified from a Conservative into some sort of pound shop Enoch Powell. It really is an unedifying spectacle.”

Conservative backstabber Michael Gove also warned Mr Jenrick could pay for his treachery. The top Tory, who famously knifed Boris Johnson in 2016 and launched his own leadership bid, said his was a cautionary tale on how the public views disloyalty.

He said: “Now I thought at the time, and would argue to this day that what I was doing was the right thing. But in the eyes of most people at that time, and a continuing number to this day, it didn’t matter what my reasons were, the overall impression, I’m afraid, was of treachery.

“And so the challenge for Rob is that he will think, and his speech yesterday made that clear that the Conservative Party was no longer an appropriate vessel for what he believes in. And his speech was well constructed and all the rest of it, but the overall impression that will have been generated is that he was caught mid plot.”

Labour chairwoman Anna Turley said: “In the words of his new party leader: Robert Jenrick is a fraud. He himself is one of the arsonists who inflicted chaos and decline on Britain while the Tories were in government.

“Now he wants the public to believe he’d do a better job through Farage’s Reform. It’s a recipe for more of the same chaos that held our country back for far too long.”

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Meanwhile, Labour dismissed Mr Farage’s boast of a defection from its ranks to Reform next week. Chancellor Rachel Reeves told ITV Tyne Tees: “Nigel Farage says a lot of things and I think we should all take those with a pinch of salt.”