Further Tory Party Exits with Senior Defections to Reform UK
Image Credit: UK Home Office via Wikimedia Commons
Suella Braverman and Robert Jenrick have become the latest Tory party defectors, joining Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.
Former Home Secretary Braverman and Jenrick, Shadow Secretary of State for Justice and Shadow Lord Chancellor until recently, join around 20 serving and former Conservative MPs who have defected. These include Nadhim Zahawi, who served in various ministerial positions as part of a number of Conservative governments, and Andrew Rosindell, who was serving as Shadow Foreign Minister in Badenoch’s Shadow Cabinet until his defection.
Both claim that failures of the Conservative party pushed them to defect. Jenrick points to the party's inability to acknowledge the ‘broken’ state of the country, and to understand ‘what it got wrong, let alone fixing it’, while Braverman claims that she has ‘no confidence in the Conservative party’, and that ‘Britain is indeed broken’. The two former Conservative MPs have both expressed beliefs that Reform UK is the way forward for a suffering country.
Their claims of a broken Britain and attacks on the political status quo haven’t gone uncriticised. Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey referenced Jenrick’s influence and ministerial positions in previous Conservative governments, stating that ‘people are fed up of hearing that Britain is broken from the very people like Robert Jenrick and Nigel Farage who broke it in the first place’. The same criticism can be made of Suella Braverman who, according to Good Advice UK, ‘oversaw the largest net number of people immigrating to the UK in its history’ during her tenure as Home Secretary - the issue that Reform UK has constructed its entire platform upon.
While Braverman’s defection came without warning, Jenrick’s defection was preceded by his sacking from the Shadow Cabinet after Tory leader Kemi Badenoch was presented with evidence that he was planning to defect. Another blow to the Conservatives came in Wales with the expulsion from the party of James Evans, Member of the Senedd for Brecon and Radnorshire, following discussions with Reform UK allegedly about defecting.
Badenoch is maintaining a calm facade in the face of these defections, claiming that her party is ‘stronger and more united’ since these recent departures. But according to PoliticsHome, there is reason for concern for Badenoch, as several Conservative councillors have claimed that they’ve been privately offered jobs and opportunities to join Reform UK. Polling is also looking bleak for the Conservatives, with YouGov’s voting intention data showing Reform UK leading the Conservatives by 6 points.