As the Conservative Party under Kemi Badenoch struggles to recover from their devastating 2024 election loss, internal divisions have erupted into the open. The decision to sack shadow justice minister Robert Jenrick due to his impending defection to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party has laid bare the fragility of the right-wing political landscape in the UK.
Jenrick’s public shift to Reform UK has transformed the issue from one of party discipline to a test of the Conservatives’ very political viability. The former Tory cabinet minister claims he left because “Britain is broken” and the party he served refused to acknowledge their role in breaking it. This self-serving distinction, however, highlights a deeper malaise within the Conservative ranks.
Despite Badenoch’s improving poll numbers, she could not afford to tolerate dissent from ambitious colleagues coveting her job. By acting decisively, she has exposed a rift that goes beyond mere restlessness. Jenrick was not just a disgruntled colleague, but a plausible alternative centre of gravity, with the potential to attract Reform voters and support from within the party.
The Tories’ problem is not that senior figures are engaging with Reform UK, but that enough of them now believe the populist party offers salvation from extinction. More than a dozen former Conservative MPs have already defected, and Jenrick’s switch is a significant blow, as he has real grassroots traction.
Badenoch can claim she has inoculated the party against further infection, but Jenrick’s removal has only highlighted the Conservatives’ disunity. The party’s very survival is at stake, as is the coherence of the opposition. A right-wing split between rival claims to authenticity offers voters noise rather than a credible programme and diminishes the prospect of an effective government-in-waiting.
The British right is now divided between two camps competing for the same voters. The risk for Badenoch is that she has triggered a change in the politics of the right that cannot be closed down by discipline alone. By defenestrating Jenrick, she has forced Conservative MPs to confront questions they have postponed since 2024: where does power on the right now reside? Is Reform a threat to be contained or a vehicle to be joined, or bargained with?
This drama is far from over, as the party gears up for key May elections. The battle for leadership and survival will be at the forefront, and every act of authority can appear as an escalation of the fight. The British right may wish to present its current turmoil as a tragedy inflicted from without, but it is a self-administered wound, the logical outcome of a decade of Conservative delusions.
