Andrea Jenkyns: "I Don't Care What Happens To The Conservatives Now"
10 min read
Dame Andrea Jenkyns moved from the Tories to Reform in a high-profile defection last year and is now in charge of one of England’s largest counties. The new mayor tells Noah Vickers about her political journey and her plans for Lincolnshire
It was one of Reform UK’s biggest triumphs in May’s local elections. The Greater Lincolnshire mayoral race saw the party take 42 per cent of the vote in what was once one of England’s most solidly Conservative counties.
Fitting, then, that the woman at the centre of that victory was former Tory MP Dame Andrea Jenkyns, who now finds herself in charge of transport, skills and infrastructure for 1.1 million people.
“I guess it’s more on par with [being] a secretary of state really, because you’ve got more of that power,” she says, reflecting on how her new job compares with her old role representing Morley and Outwood in Parliament.
“It’s truly amazing to have the ability to start getting things done. It’s obviously completely different to being a backbencher… Every day I’m buzzing.”
The House meets the mayor, 51, in her office in Lincoln, adorned with both the Union Jack and the flag of Lincolnshire. A vast map of the county decorates one wall, and on the wall behind her desk, a motto has been hung up in capital letters: BRING BACK COMMON SENSE.
Sitting just below that sign – as school is out for summer – is her eight-year-old son Clifford, who plays on Jenkyns’ computer throughout our interview. Born in 2017 on the day that Article 50 was triggered, Jenkyns said via her website at the time that he had been nicknamed “Brexit Clifford”.
His father is another former Conservative MP, Jack Lopresti, from whom Jenkyns is now divorced. Lopresti has taken a rather different onward career path to his ex-wife, having enlisted in the Ukrainian army. In a tweet earlier this year, Jenkyns revealed that she and Clifford only became aware of this after being sent the news on social media. “However, I of course wish him a safe return,” she wrote.
Jenkyns, who defected to Reform after losing her re-drawn constituency last year, tells The House she is willing to think “outside the box” in her new role, pushing the limits of her own political comfort zone if it produces positive results. For example, in what would be a very un-Conservative move, she hints that she will consider taking buses into public ownership if it means more reliable and frequent services.
The mayor also wants to explore the creation of a new town in the county, arguing that it could be better than simply adding homes on to existing settlements without the necessary infrastructure. She refuses to be drawn, though, on where this new town could go, saying it would require extensive consultation. She also stresses that she would only support the project if it counts towards Lincolnshire’s housing targets, as the government has said such schemes should be “over and above” local quotas.
The county’s biggest challenge, according to Jenkyns, is its rurality – it can take over two hours to drive through it, top to bottom. Lincolnshire is a “dental desert”, with only one dental surgery available per 17,000 residents, Jenkyns claims. Given its size, she also believes the county is being short-changed in funding for its police force.
At the same time as arguing that her area is not receiving its fair share of money from central government, she is keen to see Reform’s ‘Doge’ unit visit Lincolnshire county council in search of wasteful spending inherited from the previous Conservative administration.
Council budgets across the country are clearly stretched, not least by the pressures of social care. Does she really expect Doge to find serious savings?
“Well, who knows? I hope we do find savings. I genuinely hope we do,” she replies, adding that she has challenged excessive spending on catering and hotel accommodation by her own combined authority.
I think Andy Burnham is a very good mayor
As a new mayor, she tells The House she is eager to learn from some of her more established colleagues across the country, pointing out that the relationships between them are “less tribal” than MPs.
“I’ve already had lots of conversations with Ben Houchen, and Andy Burnham as well. I think Andy – even though we’ve got political differences – I think he’s a very good mayor,” she says.
Jenkyns’ defection to Reform was announced in November last year. Was it difficult leaving the Conservatives?
“No. And do you know what the worst part was for me? I never thought I’d say this, but I don’t care what happens to the party now.”
Jenkyns was asked to join the Brexit Party in 2019, but says she wasn’t tempted by the offer then, as she wanted to fight for her vision of Brexit within the Tories.
“I was probably Theresa May’s biggest critic, and then Rishi Sunak’s afterwards. But we had a majority, and I believed you had to be part of that to find the solution.”
After becoming frustrated by the direction of the party under Sunak, Jenkyns feels that she handled her eventual defection to Reform honourably.
“I got so disillusioned in the end, but I believed in going down with a sinking ship, because I was loyal to the end where that was concerned. I was elected as an MP with a particular party – I didn’t want to suddenly let down the people. So I think I did it the clean way.”
The height of Jenkyns’ parliamentary career came when she was appointed to be minister for skills during the final months of Boris Johnson’s premiership – a role she retained under Liz Truss, before being sacked by Sunak. Would she like to see Truss join Reform?
“She doesn’t want to go back into politics, in my opinion,” the mayor says. “She’s forging her own path, and good luck to her…
“I mean, we’ve got some other defections coming, some interesting ones from former ministers. So, watch this space. But to me, we only want the right people in the party. We don’t want any lefties.”
Yet part of Reform’s success appears to be the way in which it has adopted popular policies from the left as well as the right. Awkwardly for Jenkyns, this includes abolishing the two-child benefit cap, a measure she voted for shortly after her election in 2015.
Dame Andrea Jenkyns (PA Images / Alamy)
The mayor says she “can understand why Reform is doing this”, arguing that 10 years ago, “we didn’t have a declining population to this degree as we do [now] in Britain”. According to the ONS, the fertility rate in England and Wales has fallen from 1.82 children per mother in 2015 to 1.44 in 2023.
Yet on other policy areas, Jenkyns is clearly more comfortable in her new party. One of them is climate change.
Reform’s official position on climate change appears to have shifted slightly. In the months before last year’s election, the ‘working draft’ of its ‘contract’ with voters played down the impact of human activity on carbon emissions.
“Climate change has happened for millions of years, before man-made CO2 emissions, and will always change,” it stated. “We are better to adapt to warming, rather than pretend we can stop it.”
An updated version of the document removed those passages and does not directly address the cause of rising carbon emissions. Instead it simply argues that net-zero is an “unaffordable” and “unachievable” strategy which should be abandoned.
Does Jenkyns believe climate change is happening?
“I believe the climate has always been changing,” she says with a laugh. “It’s cyclical, natural cycles. I’ve been an animal welfare campaigner for 25 years, so I care about the environment where that’s concerned. I care about green spaces for our children. But I do feel that net-zero is a con. Follow the money.”
During her time as an MP, Jenkyns served as an unpaid director at Net Zero Watch, a campaign group arguing for “more balanced and transparent scrutiny of climate science”. Its chairman, Neil Record, donated £5,000 to Jenkyns’ local Conservative association on 23 May last year – one day after the general election had been announced.
“People can try and silence me, saying ‘You’re a climate sceptic.’ I don’t care what you call me,” says Jenkyns. “What I want to do is get full transparency out there and ensure that both sides of the arguments are covered, so that the public can make their own decision – and not get shouted down for having an alternative view.”
The last three years have ranked amongst the UK’s top five warmest on record, with 2024 the fourth warmest year in records dating back to 1884. Does she really think there is nothing unusual about that?
“It’s how you present things. I studied economics – things can be presented in certain ways,” she counters, adding that she has “worked with loads of academics who have got other data” and “not everything gets covered” by the media.
“It might be the case that it is true,” she later concedes, “but let’s scrutinise it – let’s see both sides of the arguments. That’s the fair thing.”
The difficulty for Jenkyns is that regardless of whether or not she believes in man-made climate change, the effects of melting ice caps are being unignorably felt on local coastlines.
Just days before our interview, officers at Lincolnshire county council published a report on the region’s sea defences, which are fast degrading. If they are breached, areas as far as 15km inland could be hit by tidal flooding, leaving thousands of homes in danger.
The report notes: “This risk is a present and ongoing one and will only be exacerbated by sea level rises and the increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events.” Does the mayor disagree with this assessment?
“I haven’t read the report. I can’t comment,” she says cheerily. “It’s easy to give headlines… I know that as a journalist you want to make sure I’m pitted against other people in my party.”
Are rising sea levels a threat to coastal communities in Lincolnshire?
“I’m not answering that. I simply want to read this report… You ain’t gonna get an answer off me until I’ve read the report.” But she insists: “I will always make sure we protect our local people. Of course I will.”
In the meantime, Jenkyns is excited about the possibility of fracking in Gainsborough, which she hopes will be made possible if Reform wins the next general election. If Nigel Farage does become prime minister, Jenkyns would seem an obvious contender for his cabinet.
Would she be interested in serving as a secretary of state? She sighs.
“Can I be honest? I found it hard being a single mum, spending half the week in London. Clifford went to school in London and in Yorkshire. We were taking three dogs down on the train. It’s nice to be in one place and be a mum and do your job.”
Jenkyns is not stuffy. At one point she offers The House her pudding from the lunch she had been eating at her desk. “By the way, I’ve got a rhubarb tart. I’m too full to eat it – would you like it?”
Nor does she take ‘no’ for an answer. “Are you sure? Do you want to take it on the train with you?” The offer is – eventually – accepted.
