LONDON — Kemi Badenoch has fired her former leadership rival Robert Jenrick from the Conservative Shadow Cabinet alleging he is planning to defect.
The Tory chief said in an X video she was “very sorry to be presented with clear, irrefutable evidence” that Jenrick was “preparing to defect” and “planning to do so in the most damaging way possible to the Conservative Party and his Shadow Cabinet colleagues.”
Asked if he is speaking to Jenrick about defecting Nigel Farage said: “Of course I’ve talked to Robert Jenrick.”
“Was I on the verge of signing a document with him? No. But have we had conversations? Yes,” the Reform UK leader, who was speaking at a press conference in Scotland, said.
“I’m very surprised this news has broken,” he added.
In her X post on Thursday morning Badenoch said were her “responsibility to protect our party, and faced with that information, I took the only decision that any responsible leader could,” Badenoch said.
The Tory leader added: “the British public are tired of political psycho drama. So am I. They saw too much of it in the last government, they’ve seen too much of it in this government.”
Jenrick did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
This developing story is being updated.
