Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch has insisted Britain is not broken after her former minister Robert Jenrick criticised the party for failing to campaign on that line.
Writing in the Daily Telegraph, she said: “Ours is still one of the most successful, resilient and influential countries on Earth,” adding that telling voters their “country is finished” only “drags them down”.
She also insisted that the Conservatives were stronger after Jenrick was sacked, ahead of his defection to Reform.
In an interview with the ‘s Laura Kuenssberg on Friday, Jenrick said a shadow cabinet meeting where colleagues failed to agree that the country was broken had been the final straw for him.
In her editorial, Badenoch said there were problems in the UK, some of which were getting worse, but that the country’s best days lay ahead.
She insisted the Conservatives were best placed to offer solutions to the country’s problems, saying that Reform were destined to fail as they welcomed “toxic people” who “destroy organisations”.
“A movement built on grievance and serial disloyalty is doomed to fail, and they will be at each other’s throats soon enough,” the opposition leader wrote.
Speaking to Newsnight, Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice praised Jenrick as “the only cabinet minister who resigned on a matter of principle from the Conservative government”.
This was in reference to Jenrick’s decision to resign from Rishi Sunak’s government, saying it was not going far enough to find a solution to fast-rising immigration levels.
Tice continued: “That makes him uniquely qualified to actually to explain where things went so badly wrong on both legal and illegal immigration, which is to the fury of tens of millions of British people.”
Badenoch said that Jenrick’s defection “was never about principle, it was about ambition” and “every criticism he now makes occurred when he was in government”.
The Conservative party are now a “stronger and more united team”, she wrote.
Badenoch hopes her sacking of Jenrick will strengthen her position as Tory leader and make her look decisive.
But Reform UK now has a new, prominent MP who is intent on publicising what he sees are the many mistakes of his former party.