Robert Jenrick was left embarrassed by his new leader Nigel Farage after a question about asylum hotels at his Reform unveiling.
On Thursday, Jenrick was unveiled as Reform’s newest recruit just hours after he was sacked from Kemi Badenoch’s shadow cabinet.
This was after Badenoch said she had been 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.”
Later that day, Jenrick and Farage took part in a press event confirming the former shadow justice secretary’s move to Reform.
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At the event, the Mirror’s David Burke asked the pair how Reform voters would feel about Jenrick, the man responsible for many of the asylum hotels in the UK today, joining the Reform.
After Jenrick tried to claim he closed a number of asylum hotels, Farage then gave an answer that Jenrick probably won’t have been too pleased about.
The Reform leader said Jenrick was an example of someone who is “apologetic” and “indeed, ashamed” about their record in government with the Tories.
Reacting on social media, some said it was “totally humiliating” for the ex-Tory.
Someone else said it was a “strange mix of desperation and tragedy all rolled into one.”
Another suggested Jenrick’s recruitment, coming just days after Nadhim Zahawi, another figurehead of the Tory incompetence of the past few years, had joined Reform, could seriously backfire for Farage.
They wrote it was “humiliating for Jenrick” and “suicidal for Farage.”
Other said Jenrick didn’t look too chuffed with Farage’s suggestion he was “ashamed” by his political career so far.