BRIAN READE: Reform, whose solely coverage is to cease the boats, is full of Tory refugees

The seedy Westminster soap opera continues, with more Conservatives jumping ship, and is there any disgraced Tory that Farage won’t take, asks Brian Reade

This coming Monday may officially be the most depressing day of the year, but thankfully Westminster is doing its best to give us a few laughs. As Keir Starmer performs more U-turns than a one-armed man on the dodgems there’s talk of a major flip-flop manufacturer sending him a cease and desist order.

As Kemi Badenoch sacks uber-snake Robert Jenrick from her shadow cabinet because he was about to defect, but didn’t say to which party, we were left to wonder who could possibly offer a home to a man who hangs out flags alongside Tommy Robinson fanboys.

Ah yes, it was to Reform, whose leader once called Jenrick “a fraud”, yet was suddenly hailing the repugnant opportunist a political colossus. That’s now 18 senior Tories who have jumped ship, making us wonder why a party whose only policy is to stop the boats is packed with boatfuls of desperate refugees washing up from the Tory benches.

Another refugee this week was Nadhim Zahawi who joined Farage’s “glorious revolution” because “Britain is sick”. This from a man worth £100million who tried to claim taxpayer cash to heat his stables when the truly sick were being hammered by his government’s austerity.

An ex-Chancellor who was sacked as Tory party chairman after failing to disclose that HMRC was investigating his tax affairs, who said he could never live in a country run by the “deeply racist” Farage. He even compared him to Goebbels. So what does that now make Zahawi? Himmler?

How can the party supposedly set up to bring down the political establishment be so happy to pack itself with ex-members of Boris Johnson’s cabinet? How can Reform claim to be a breath of fresh air when they are accepting Tory has-beens the way a toilet flushing system welcomes turds? Is there any disgraced Tory Farage won’t take? Tractor porn-lover Neil Parish? Michelle Mone? Lord Lucan, if he resurfaces? This seedy soap opera is being likened to TV’s Traitors, but it’s more like a casting call for Dad’s Army. Jenrick was Private Pike, who everyone at Westminster knew was on manoeuvres for months. Stupid boy.

The most nauseating aspect of Zahawi’s defection were the claims from senior Tories that he begged them to put him in the Lords. Clearly, his ego could not take their refusal, so he saw Reform as his only route back into the spotlight. It was a similar story with Nadine Dorries who fled to Farage’s bosom after claiming “sinister” Tory forces blocked her becoming a dame.

Reform now looks like the knacker’s yard for retired Tories who are denied entry to that other knacker’s yard, the House of Lords. If there’s already a thousand reasons to abolish that shameful den of cronies, this week has given us another one. Actually, with the serially disgraced Peter Mandelson making a stomach-churning attempt to fight off calls for his eviction from the Lords by apologising (his second attempt) for staying best friends with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, make that a thousand and two reasons.

But back to Jenrick. Badenoch says she sacked him because “the public are tired of political psychodrama”. I’m not so sure. I’d say most of us view the goings-on at Westminster as a badly-scripted pantomime played by talentless actors. With the lame and cringeful laughs on us.