Robert Jenrick latest: Farage unveils ex-Tory as new Reform defector after shock sacking by Badenoch

Mr Jenrick has claimed the Conservatives won’t and can’t change, and said he did not trust the party on immigration.

“At a recent shadow cabinet debate, a conversation broke out. The question was put to the group, is Britain broken? I said, instinctively, it’s broken. Almost everyone said it’s not broken,” he said.

“And we were told that is the party line. A few, a few had a third position. It is broken, but we can’t say so, because the Conservative Party broke it.

“If they won’t admit publicly to you the British people, what they broke? What possible faith can you have in them to fix it?

“The Conservative Party in Westminster isn’t sorry. It doesn’t get it. It hasn’t changed. It won’t change. It can’t change.”

Mr Jenrick claimed the shadow cabinet knew its plan to stop the boats crossing the Channel would not work.

“I’ll never forget attending a Cabinet meeting in Downing Street where a plan to stop the votes was signed off, but everyone, to a man and a woman around that table knew in their hearts it was not going to work. Some even joked about it,” he said.

“I left Downing Street. That night, resolved to resign from the cabinet and I’ve never forgotten that.”

Mr Jenrick, after being announced as Reform UK’s latest recruit, listed what he said were the key problems facing the UK that needed fixing.

The country was in a dangerous, precarious position, he said, and both Labour and the Conservatives had broken Britain, he said.

In a swipe at his old party, he said the Tories nearly broke Britain.

“93% of crime goes unresolved. The courts are backlogged. The prisons are overflowing. Our army is a small it’s been since Napoleonic times.

“193,000 people have come here on small boats since 2018 last year. One illegal migrant raped a 12 year old girl.

“Terrorists have broken into Britain on small boats, and we’re living through the most profound change to our population in our nation’s history, net migration is 100 times higher in the 25 years after 1997 than in the 25 years before it. One in five in Britain weren’t born here.”

The Independent’s political editor David Maddox looks at the evidence of whether the former shadow justice secretary is an ideological convert or an extreme opportunist:

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has thanked Kemi Badenoch saying she had handed him on a plate the man who had “done more than anything in history” to realign centre-right politics as he unveiled Robert Jenrick as a new member.

Robert Jenrick has broken his silence, writing on social media simply: “It’s time for the truth.”

Kemi Badenoch says Robert Jenrick had been planning to ‘torch’ the Tories as he defected.

She told Sky News: “The worst thing was that the way he was planning to do it was not just about leaving but hurting the other people in the party.

“I think that’s quite wrong, and I think reform needs to be looking at what kind of person it is they’re taking in, someone who’s very happy to hurt his some different people to see the truth.”

The jibes and scathing take-downs:

Nigel Farage is expected to confirm Robert Jenrick’s defection to Reform UK at a press conference soon, The Times reports.

Jenrick’s allies said they expected the pair to appear alongside one another in Reform UK’s Westminster headquarters.

Farage had intended to hold the event about the delay to local elections but has changed his plans.