UK Conservative lawmaker Robert Jenrick defects to Farage’s Reform UK

SCMP | Jan. 15, 2026, 12:34 p.m. | Original
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Robert Jenrick, left, a former British Conservative Party member, at a press conference with Reform UK leader Nigel Farage in London on Thursday. Photo: Reuters

Former ‍Conservative Party leadership candidate Robert Jenrick defected to Nigel Farage’s right-wing Reform UK on Thursday, hours after he was sacked from the Conservatives when his plans to switch ⁠allegiance were leaked.

Jenrick joins at least a dozen prominent Conservatives who have joined Reform which, before an election expected in 2029, is ahead of both Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour Party and Kemi Badenoch’s Conservatives in opinion ‍polls.
“The two main parties are rotten,” Jenrick told a news conference alongside ‍ Farage . “They are no longer fit for purpose. They both broke Britain and neither can fix it.”

He will become ‌the second sitting lawmaker to have switched to Farage’s party, giving it six ‍seats in Britain’s 650-seat parliament.

Earlier in the day Badenoch announced on social media that Jenrick had been sacked from her policy team and suspended from the party after she received evidence showing ‌that ⁠he was planning to quit the party.

Badenoch said she had “irrefutable evidence” that Jenrick had been conspiring to defect “in a way designed to be as damaging as possible” to the Conservatives.

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