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 due 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 X that Jenrick had been sacked from her policy team and suspended from the party after receiving evidence that he was planning to quit the party.
Jenrick lost to Badenoch in the 2024 contest to lead the main opposition party after their crushing national election defeat and was then, in an effort to reunite the party, given the role of justice spokesperson.
Jenrick used that position to build a personal profile on key issues like immigration and crime that many saw as a platform for a future challenge to Badenoch's leadership, as the Conservatives sought to counter a dramatic loss of support to Reform UK.