Badenoch sacks Robert Jenrick from shadow cabinet over defection plot

Badenoch

UK Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch has dismissed Robert Jenrick from the Shadow Cabinet, removed as the Conservative whip, and suspended his party membership with immediate effect.

In a video shared on X (formerly Twitter) on Thursday, Badenoch said the decision followed intelligence showing that Jenrick was not only preparing to defect but intended to do so in a manner that would undermine his Shadow Cabinet colleagues and the wider Conservative Party.

“This morning, I removed the Conservative whip from Robert Jenrick after dismissing him from the Shadow Cabinet,” Badenoch said. “I was very sorry to be presented with clear, irrefutable evidence, not just that he was preparing to defect, but that he was planning to do so in the most damaging way possible to the Conservative Party and his Shadow Cabinet colleagues.”

She explained that the action was taken in fulfilment of her responsibility as party leader.

“It is my responsibility to protect our party, and faced with that information, I took the only decision that any responsible leader could,” she said.

Badenoch also criticised what she described as persistent political drama in British politics, noting that voters had grown weary of it.

“The British public are tired of political psychodrama, and so am I. They saw too much of it in the last government, and they’re seeing too much of it in this government. I will not repeat those mistakes,” she said. Punch