Robert Jenrick joins Reform UK in chaotic press conference

The former Shadow Justice Secretary was booted out of the Tories earlier on Thursday for planning to defect to Nigel Farage’s party.

But the Reform UK leader announced Mr Jenrick had joined on Thursday afternoon - although he did not appear when Mr Farage first announced it.

Mr Jenrick lost to Tory leader Kemi Badenoch in the party’s 2024 leadership election.

Mr Farage said he would “buy Kemi [Badenoch] lunch next week and say thank you” as he confirmed Mr Jenrick was joining Reform UK.

He said: “I’ve had to think very quickly as to how I should respond to this, and I just want to say thank you to Kemi Badenoch, this is the latest Christmas present I’ve ever had.

“The negotiations with Jenrick are over. There’s nothing more to be said or to be done. You’ve handed me on a plate the man that is by far the most popular figure, 60% approval rating on ConHome… you’ve perhaps today, really done anything more than anybody in history to help realign the centre-right of British politics, which is much needed against a dreadful Labour Government and increasingly worrying extreme left-wing voice in this country.

“So I can’t offer you drinks all round, but I’ll buy Kemi lunch next week and say thank you. And on that note, I will welcome Robert Jenrick into this room and into Reform UK.”

But nobody walked out and Mr Jenrick did not immediately appear.

After an awkward delay he finally emerged, with Mr Farage quipping that he feared Mr Jenrick had changed his mind: “Kemi hasn’t called him and asked him back.”

Mr Jenrick said: “It’s time for the truth. Britain has been in decline. Britain is in decline.”

He hit out at rising migration, the backlog in the courts, “overflowing” prisons and the small size of the army.

Mr Jenrick said: “Both Labour and the Conservatives broke Britain, and both are now dominated by those without the competence or the backbone needed to fix it.

“Both parties, if judged by their own actions, are committed to a set of ideas that have failed and are failing Britain. Labour started mass migration, but the Conservatives ramped it up after 2019.”

Mr Jenrick had been kicked out the Conservatives on Thursday morning after it discovered he had been “plotting to defect” to Reform.

The Tories said they found a speech which showed Mr Jenrick was planning to join Reform UK - and they published extracts of it shortly before his defection was confirmed.

Mrs Badenoch earlier said she had sacked Mr Jenrick from the shadow cabinet, removed the whip and suspended his party membership.

She said: “I was presented with clear, irrefutable evidence that he was plotting in secret to defect in a way designed to be as damaging as possible to his shadow cabinet colleagues and the wider Conservative Party.”

Mr Jenrick said he did not intend to call a by-election and that he doesn’t want to be the leader of Reform UK.