Former Conservative Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick has become the latest high-profile defector to Reform UK.
It comes after Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch announced she had fired him on Thursday (15 January) due to ‘irrefutable evidence that he was plotting in secret to defect’ from the party in a manner as ‘damaging as possible’ to the Conservatives.
Appearing alongside party leader Nigel Farage at a press conference in London, Jenrick delivered a stark diagnosis of national decline, declaring that ‘Britain is broken’ and arguing that the country has been failed over decades by both major parties.
He argued that ‘the two main parties are rotten’ and ‘no longer fit for purpose’, citing falling living standards, high energy and housing costs, overstretched public services, unresolved crime, and weakened defence capacity.
Jenrick becomes the second sitting Conservative MP — after Danny Kruger in September 2025 — to switch to Farage’s party, which has polled strongly and led several national opinion polls in recent months.
It also follows the defection of former chancellor Nadhim Zahawi this week, and around 20 former Conservative MPs to Farage’s party, which now has six sitting MPs in the House of Commons.
With the next general election due by 2029, the momentum has fuelled debate over whether Britain’s long-standing two-party dominance is beginning to fracture.
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