Jenrick's move is massive - but could it cause a bigger fight on the right?

There is fresh paint in Reform HQ - and a fresh face in its line-up.

Before Thursday, the last time Robert Jenrick walked into Millbank Tower, a fabled address in Westminster where lots of political campaigns have been run, was decades ago as an eager Conservative activist.

Now, he's Reform UK's biggest prize so far - the best-known Tory to defect, and a favourite of Conservative party members.

Like or loathe Jenrick's tactics he has campaigning guile, a knack for grabbing headlines, experience of government, knowledge of Parliament and, of course, insider knowledge of what Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch and her team are up to.

So how will this big political character adapt to a new political tribe? And could his huge move be swallowed up by a big fight on the right, at a time when Reform UK are busy trying to appeal to the whole country?

From speaking to Jenrick yesterday, he is plainly deadly serious about his political future, hitching his wagon to the biggest party in the polls right now. But any defection brings with it deep questions about whether that person can be trusted.

Some Conservatives are accusing him of lying and treachery. They say he sat in meetings with colleagues in the last seven days discussing party strategy normally.

He even, one source claimed to me, told the chief whip when challenged on the morning of his defection that it was "nonsense" and that he was "gobsmacked".

Hours later, Jenrick did appear grinning alongside Reform UK leader Nigel Farage for the public handshake sealing the deal after, remember, being sacked.

Did he serially deny thinking about going to Reform in the last few months?

Yes.

Do we know now that he'd been talking to them since the autumn?

Yes to that too.

Jenrick's answer to accusations of lying, and to the evidence he misled people, is to claim he is the one now being truly honest about the state of the country and the demise of the Conservative Party. He told us that he'd only made a final decision to leave at Christmas.

Whether you have sympathy for him, think his behaviour is appalling, or something in between, there's clearly a poisonous row raging over what he did. That row does nothing for the sense of trust in politicians.

He wouldn't be drawn on whether it was one of his own team who leaked his plans to defect, but you can be sure today won't be the last word on that.

One of the reasons for Jenrick's exit from the Tories is that he wanted to strike a more strident tone than his colleagues were willing to do. Political parties traditionally stand or fall on being able to disagree privately but agree in public. Without that discipline, it's chaos.

We asked him if he now agreed with Reform's position on benefits for bigger families – his answer was that the party "needs to think it through". Not exactly the same as the script.

And what about the NHS? Jenrick wasn't ready to agree with Farage's previous comments that it could possibly move to an insurance-based model. But it highlights an area where Reform will be under pressure to take a clearer position.

Political parties aren't just about what colour your banner or tie is, but what you believe in and stand for.

Once upon at time, Jenrick was seen as a 'Cameroon', a devotee of David Cameron's Waitrose-style politics: modern, socially liberal, middle-class-friendly. It is one thing to shift right, shaped by changes in the country and his own experience at the Home Office, for which he quit government in frustration. It's another to take the leap into a party that has a whole different system of beliefs.

And politicians are by nature ambitious people. Jenrick told me he hadn't been offered a job by Farage, but it's crackers to imagine that he doesn't want a prominent position.

How will his arrival go down with Reform's small number of other big names - Richard Tice or Zia Yusuf? Ambition - for themselves and their party, and, they'd say, the country - is what gets politicians out of bed in the morning. Sharing the spotlight is not something they all exactly love.

Jenrick told me he and Farage's previous barbs against each other were just "rough and tumble".

But given their exchanges have involved trading insults including fraud, hypocrite and unserious, we'll have to see how their working relationship evolves.

Jenrick's defection raises one of the biggest questions in politics right now; whether Reform UK can, as Jenrick says he wants to, "unite the right".

It has spent months miles ahead in the polls even as the Tories have pepped up a touch in recent weeks. But as Jenrick himself used to claim, there is a risk that if voters choose Reform that will split the votes on the right, making it easier for Prime Minister Keir Starmer to win next time round.

Truly "uniting the right" would require the Tories limping off - or, what right now seems far-fetched, the opposite. Or indeed doing a deal, which both groups swear blind they wouldn't.

There's no sign Badenoch has the appetite for anything other than a fight to the death.

As Chris Mason wrote yesterday, there is a risk that recruiting Jenrick and others gives Reform the flavour of being a repository for grumpy Conservatives, not the radical insurgent force Farage would like to claim. But nothing would suit Labour more than for the two to stay locked in combat, reminding the public of years of Tory spats and showing that both Reform and the Conservatives are focused on each other, not No 10.

Jenrick has clearly thought deeply about leaving the party that gave him his career and the opportunity to wield power. Over time, you can see that he has come to believe that the problems of the country need something more radical than either of the traditional big parties are prepared to countenance.

Reform will now have his knowledge and backing to help answer that call with a credible offer to the public. The Conservatives, in his view, need more than a fresh coat of paint.

Top image credit: Getty Images

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