'We'd been on high alert' - How Jenrick's dramatic defection unfolded

'We'd been on high alert' - How Jenrick's dramatic defection unfolded 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. "He was honestly very positive and chipper", says one who was in the room. 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. For months Jenrick had been on defection watch, and behind the scenes Badenoch's team were picking up worrying signals. "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". Secret discussions In fact Jenrick had been having many more secret discussions with Reform figures for four months including with the party's leader. "There were multiple conversations, many one-to-one meetings with Nigel," says a Farage ally. Was Jenrick offered a top cabinet job in a possible future Reform government? "Nothing was offered", insists the senior Reform source. "Honestly, genuinely nothing." The leak 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. 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. 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. 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." Badenoch immediately assembled her closest advisers including Conservative chief whip Rebecca Harris and a few other shadow cabinet ministers. "My immediate reaction was it's treachery, it's disloyalty" says one of those Badenoch consulted in her parliamentary office. "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." The Conservative leader decided her only option was to move fast. The sacking 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. She then rushed to catch a flight to Scotland. 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. She told him what the party had discovered. He protested his innocence and ended the call...

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