Nigel Farage called Robert Jenrick a “fraud” in a tweet last year, just a few months before the former Tory shadow minister seems on the verge of joining Reform.
On Tuesday morning, Kemi Badenoch announced she had sacked Jenrick from the shadow cabinet after she was “presented with clear, irrefutable evidence that he was plotting in secret to defect.”
The Tory leader said Jenrick had been planning to defect “in a way designed to be as damaging as possible to his Shadow Cabinet colleagues and the wider Conservative Party.”
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Jenrick also had the whip removed and his party membership was suspended “with immediate effect.”
It is widely believed Jenrick had been on the verge of defecting to Farage’s Reform UK.
In a press conference taking place when the news of Jenrick’s sacking broke, Farage revealed he had had conversations with the MP about him joining Reform.
However, he said Jenrick had not signed a deal with Reform and that he was not going to unveil the Tory MP at a second press event on Thursday afternoon.
Farage did say he would ring Jenrick and “might even buy him a pint.”
But less than five months ago, Farage was slamming Jenrick as a “fraud.”
Amid debate about asylum hotels last summer, Farage shared a quote from Jenrick in 2022, in which the then immigration minister said he had procured even more hotels for asylum seekers.
The Clacton MP wrote: “Jenrick is a fraud. I’ve always thought so, this quote proves it.”
Well, now it seems that Farage is more than happy to have a “fraud” in his party.
It’s not like he won’t fit in…