Robert Jenrick’s defection to Reform UK features heavily on Friday’s front pages. The former Conservative shadow minister, who was sacked by Kemi Badenoch for plotting against her, has become the “most senior Tory to switch to Reform”, the Guardian reports. Jenrick has called the Conservatives “rotten” and a “failed” party.
The Sun dramatically imagines Farage, Badenoch and “banished Jenrick” as part of the hugely popular TV show The Traitors, with the headline “Traitories” in front of the two men dressed in green cloaks. The paper describes Badenoch’s actions as she “banished her former leadership rival”.
Similarly, the Metro reports that the “shock Tory defection echoes the drama on TV”. An edited photo of Jenrick draped in a red clock as “the secret traitor” features on the paper’s front page.
Badenoch raises her glass on i Paper’s front page on a “day of poison and betrayal” following the exiling of “her rival Jenrick”. According to the paper, someone close to the former Conservative shadow minister revealed his plan of wanting to join Reform UK to the Tory leader.
A smiling Jenrick shaking hands with an elated Nigel Farage is featured as the main image on the Independent. A “gloating Farage” thanks Badenoch for “jumping the gun” and delivering Robert Jenrick to Reform “on a plate”, the paper reports.
The Daily Mirror dubs Reform UK a “party of Tory failures” and asks “would you trust any of them?”
Badenoch says “bad people are leaving my party” after the Tory leader sacked Jenrick, the Daily Express reports. The paper headlines on Jenrick’s “blast at ‘rotten Tories'”.
The Times reports on the former shadow justice secretary secretly negotiating with Farage “for four months” before he was sacked by Badenoch. The paper says the Conservative leader “pre-emptively dismissed” Jenrick after discovering “irrefutable evidence he was plotting to join Reform”.
Jenrick’s declaration that his former party “broke Britain” makes the headline on the front of the Telegraph.
The Daily Mail uses their front page to send a message to Reform and the Tories to “stop fighting each other” and “end the Labour nightmare”.
A “line of fire” of ICE agents in Minneapolis looms large at the top of the Financial Times.
Nigel Farage being pranked into making a Cameo video is the focus of the Daily Star’s front page.
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