Conservatives no longer a national party, Jenrick claims

The Conservative Party is no longer a national party and risks only being relevant to “posh suburbs”, Robert Jenrick has claimed.

The Tory defector to Reform UK also said in an interview with the Spectator magazine that his decision was in part inspired by a discussion with his father, to whom he revealed he would rather see Nigel Farage as prime minister than Kemi Badenoch.

The ex-shadow justice secretary defected to Reform last Thursday, describing Britain as “broken” and blaming the Tories and Labour for the country’s troubles.

His exit came after Mrs Badenoch sacked him from her frontbench and accused him of plotting to leave in a way intended to cause as much harm as possible to the Tories.

Speaking to the Spectator, Mr Jenrick hit out at his former political party.

“It’s a party reconciling itself to being relevant only in the posh suburbs and fancy parts of our big cities. Kensington and Wimbledon, not Newark and Wolverhampton,” he said.

The Newark MP added: “That’s not the people I came into politics to represent, the people I grew up around or the people that I know in north Nottinghamshire. It’s not a national party at all.”

Mr Jenrick also spoke of a conversation he had with his father on Boxing Day, when he was asked which party he would vote for at a general election if he was not in politics.

The MP told the magazine: “I said, ‘Reform’. He said, ‘If you weren’t in politics, weren’t a candidate, had no particular loyalty, who would you want to be prime minister if the choice was Keir Starmer, Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage?’ I said, ‘Nigel Farage’.”

His father then told him to “be honest with yourself and become a Reform MP”, Mr Jenrick claimed.

Elsewhere in the interview, Mr Jenrick said he had considered fighting for the Tory leadership again after May’s local elections but conceded he would then likely be “the last leader of the Tory party”.

Mr Jenrick’s wife Michal Berkner – an influential figure in his campaign to lead the Tories – is also said to have joined Reform, according to the Spectator.

On Wednesday night, Tory leader Mrs Badenoch suggested the Tories had lost Mr Jenrick to Reform “not on ideology, but personal ambition”.

The swipe at her former senior colleague came at a meeting of the 1922 Committee, the assembly of all Tory MPs.

Speaking at the group’s first moot since the defection, Mrs Badenoch also challenged some of Reform’s narrative about the defections from her party.

She appeared to hit out at Mr Farage’s suggestion that his party represented the “genuine centre-right of this country”.

The Tory leader said: “We are not moving leftwards, we are the party of the right and will always be a party of the right.

“We have to push back, don’t let other people speak for us.”

Amid Reform’s portrayal of the country as “broken Britain”, Mrs Badenoch said: “There is a lot to fix in this country.

“A lot of stuff isn’t working, a lot is broken, but the whole country isn’t broken beyond repair.

“We need to show hope, aspiration and that we can fix problems – we are brave enough to take tough decisions, and we are competent enough to deliver.

“Where Reform are negative about our country, we will be fuelled by positivity.”

Mr Jenrick made his first appearance in the Commons chamber alongside Reform colleagues on Wednesday.

He sat at Prime Minister’s Questions between Lee Anderson and Danny Kruger, both of whom also left the Conservatives for Reform UK while they were sitting MPs.

Over the weekend, he was followed to Reform by Romford MP Andrew Rosindell, taking Mr Farage’s number of MPs to seven.