Jenrick's defection isn't a loss for the Tories. It's a turning point
4 min read
Wise heads around Nigel Farage know that for every former Tory they welcome with open arms, their anti-establishment appeal takes a hit.
Goodbye and good riddance.
Robert Jenrick always asked not what he could do for his party, but what his party could do for him. It could never be enough.
Having slimmed down his waist, sharpened his jaw line and simmered down his soggy beliefs to a handful of hard right “solutions”, he could never be happy in a political family that knows there’s more to running Britain than playing games with sweeping statements on some niche theological issues.
Conservatives' self-confidence was understandably crushed after the brutal defeat of the last general election. But Jenrick forgot the heritage and the spectacular electoral success of the party over more than a century. Instead, he gazed longingly towards Nigel Farage, desperate for a shortcut to a positive vibe and political momentum but determined to join with the leftovers of a Tory rump behind him. He failed. So he can now shuffle alone along the opposition benches to sit with a parliamentary caucus that’s dwarfed by the Liberal Democrats and SNP. Let’s hope it’s a happy home.
He joins not as a big beast of better Tory days but as a former minister who walked out of the Home Office to complain about immigration rather than stay there when he had the chance — in power — to sort it out. In my time at No 10, I was initially grateful and impressed by his willingness to bat for the team and take on some tough interviews, but soon after being given a red box, he dropped it, along with the more mainstream conservative views he’d advocated for most of his career.
Discovering Ozempic seemed to go hand in hand with hardening his views, apprehending fare dodgers and wandering around northern cities, struggling, he claimed, to see a white face. If Farage wants him, he can have him. But I know that the wise heads around Nigel are already nervous that their anti-establishment, fresh-start credentials are watered down every time they accept another defection by a disillusioned Tory. Pitching to working-class, former Labour voters in the valleys of south Wales is fine as a political outsider with great charisma and the gift of the gab. But if Reform turns up in Cwmbran with a busload of misfits who’ve abandoned their old right-wing tribe within a tribe, he’ll struggle.
So, credit to Kemi Badenoch for seizing the initiative here, ending the tedious torture of waiting for the inevitable moment when the now former shadow justice secretary would seize the moment of maximum impact to contrive an excuse to pull up his stumps and leave. The Conservative Party took a massive beating at the last election, but the Caerphilly by-election suggests we’ve already seen the high tide of Reform. I expect them to do well, perhaps very well, under the PR systems that fill the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Senedd, but I don’t expect them to be in power.
Conservatives in Wales have little to look forward to in the May elections, but the party at Westminster has a spring in its step. The Budget saw Badenoch baring her political teeth very effectively, and I’m reassured that I hear a lot more now about cutting welfare, balancing the books and growing the economy, rather than following Reform down a cul-de-sac of culture wars and migrant bashing. Let Shabana Mahmoud go blow for blow with Reform on the small boats. Most of us know the greatest threats to Britain at the moment are Vladimir Putin and the growth-destroying policies of Rachel Reeves and the woeful leadership of Keir Starmer.
I’d advise against seeing the departure of Jenrick as another nail in the Conservative coffin. Badenoch's muscular reaction to the latest rumours about him should instead be seen as a turning point, when one of the most successful election-winning forces in the history of democracy began to regain its mojo. If anyone else is thinking of jumping ship, now would be a good time, or they too might get pushed.
Guto Harri is a former Conservative Party strategist who worked as Downing Street director of communications under Boris Johnson.
