Joe Pike<\/span>Politics correspondent<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n On Wednesday afternoon in a large wood-panelled room in parliament, Robert Jenrick was sitting alongside Kemi Badenoch and the rest of the Conservative shadow cabinet talking about foreign policy.<\/p>\n “He was honestly very positive and chipper”, says one who was in the room.<\/p>\n Within twenty-four hours a sensational leak from inside Jenrick’s own Commons office would lead to him being thrown out of the party he joined as a teenager. And him deciding to back Reform, its biggest rival.<\/p>\n For months Jenrick had been on defection watch, and behind the scenes Badenoch’s team were picking up worrying signals.<\/p>\n “We’d been in a high state of alert”, says a senior conservative. “For quite a long time we’ve been hearing from multiple people that he was on manoeuvres. We knew about at least one evening meeting he’d had with Farage in December”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n In fact Jenrick had been having many more secret discussions with Reform figures for four months including with the party’s leader.<\/p>\n “There were multiple conversations, many one-to-one meetings with Nigel,” says a Farage ally.<\/p>\n Was Jenrick offered a top cabinet job in a possible future Reform government? “Nothing was offered”, insists the senior Reform source. “Honestly, genuinely nothing.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n But as Badenoch wrapped up her shadow cabinet meeting at 17:00 GMT on Wednesday, she was taken aside and shown what her advisers immediately recognised was a bombshell leak.<\/p>\n A source with access to Jenrick’s office had handed the Tory leadership a draft of Jenrick’s secret defection speech, which included excoriating attacks on shadow cabinet ministers.<\/p>\n Jenrick’s allies won’t comment on the identity of the alleged leaker but do not dispute the document came from one of his inner circle.<\/p>\n They deny, however, that the MP was ever careless with the draft: “The speech never left Rob’s office. The idea that it was left lying around somewhere is untrue.”<\/p>\n Badenoch immediately assembled her closest advisers including Conservative chief whip Rebecca Harris and a few other shadow cabinet ministers.<\/p>\n “My immediate reaction was it’s treachery, it’s disloyalty” says one of those Badenoch consulted in her parliamentary office.<\/p>\n “The temptation in these situations is to do nothing and hope it goes away, or wait a day or two. But that would have been a cop out. And Kemi is not someone who cops out.”<\/p>\n The Conservative leader decided her only option was to move fast.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n On Thursday, Badenoch woke before dawn and made the final decision to sack Jenrick. She sat down in front of her home computer to record a video announcing that he had been sacked from the shadow cabinet and suspended from the Conservative Party.<\/p>\n She then rushed to catch a flight to Scotland.<\/p>\n Jenrick’s allies say he was in his office in Westminster later that morning when he received a call from Tory chief whip Rebecca Harris.<\/p>\n She told him what the party had discovered. He protested his innocence and ended the call abruptly. Within minutes, Badenoch’s team had posted her video.<\/p>\n Soon after, Jenrick had a brief call with Nigel Farage. “It was quick”, says one Reform source. They said: ‘We’re on: let’s do it today’.”<\/p>\n Jenrick’s allies argue his defection was the biggest moment of his career, and he feels “liberated” to have got it out the way.<\/p>\n “At very little notice and under immense pressure he delivered a speech and Q&A to the media incredibly well”, one says. “There were no slip-ups.”<\/p>\n “I think it nullifies a massive Tory attack – that Reform are one man band and not serious. Because Rob is very serious.”<\/p>\n Badenoch’s supporters argue her improving performance in prime minister’s questions and in the opinion polls in recent months meant Jenrick’s chances of unseating her as Tory leader were vanishingly small.<\/p>\n “It’s not because Kemi is failing that he’s done this. It’s because she’s succeeding”, say one in the shadow cabinet.<\/p>\n “It’s made it more difficult to get the top job. He has no chance of being leader before 2029. So why stay?”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The fact Jenrick had drafted a full defection speech is surely proof his mind was made up before Badenoch made her surprise move.<\/p>\n “Rob had decided”, one close to him says. “It was a question of when.”<\/p>\n They say he got increasingly frustrated after being told off by colleagues both for speaking out about grooming gangs, and for criticising the UK granting citizenship to British-Egyptian dissident Alaa Abd El Fattah – a decision made under the Conservatives.<\/p>\n The final straw seems to have been a disagreement at a shadow cabinet away-day last Thursday over whether Britain was broken.<\/p>\n “He was very odd at the away day”, said one present. “His body language was withdrawn, his chair was pushed back from the table, he was taking lots of notes.”<\/p>\n In Jenrick’s telling the shadow cabinet were asked if they thought Britain was broken. He said yes. Some agreed but argued: “We can’t say that. Because it implies we broke it.”<\/p>\n If that away day was a turning point in the political career of Robert Jenrick and the right of British politics, it seems fitting that the meeting took place at a venue overlooking the Tower of London.<\/p>\n “It’s a traditional home of traitors”, jokes one who was there. “Which we didn’t realise at the time.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"EPA](\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/480\/cpsprodpb\/f125\/live\/a4d4e600-f265-11f0-a422-4ba8a094a8fa.jpg.webp\")
EPA<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\nSecret discussions<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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![\"Jeff](\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/480\/cpsprodpb\/4b83\/live\/7e4dec20-f265-11f0-a422-4ba8a094a8fa.jpg.webp\")
Jeff Overs\/BBC<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\nThe leak<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
The sacking<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
Defection decision<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
![\"Thin,](\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/480\/cpsprodpb\/f85a\/live\/f5af8760-f0df-11f0-b5f7-49f0357294ff.png.webp\")
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n