Robert Jenrick has been sacked. Not for the planning scandal, not for painting over Disney murals at a children’s asylum centre, not for the Union Jacks on lampposts, not for peddling Great Replacement theory in Telegraph op-eds. He has been sacked for getting caught.

Kemi Badenoch announced this morning that she had “clear, irrefutable evidence” that her shadow justice secretary was “plotting in secret to defect in a way designed to be as damaging as possible” to the Conservative Party. His resignation speech was apparently found lying around. The humiliation is perfect: not the grand defection, not the staged announcement at Farage’s 4:30 press conference, but the shame of being pre-empted, of having your betrayal leaked before you could perform it.

Nigel Farage, speaking in Scotland, confirmed what everyone already knew. “Of course I’ve talked to Robert Jenrick,” he said, hand on heart. “Was I on the verge of signing a document with him? No. But have we had conversations? Yes.” He will give Jenrick a ring this afternoon. Might buy him a pint. The condescension is itself a kind of verdict.

What are we to make of this? The immediate political story is simple enough. Badenoch has rid herself of the man who has been undermining her leadership since the moment he lost to her. Kevin Hollinrake, the Tory chair, put it plainly on the BBC this morning: Jenrick ‘didn’t take losing the leadership contest well.’ The evidence of his treachery came from his own inner circle. Jenrick has been caught between parties for a while, belonging to neither, exposed as what he always was: a man of limitless ambition and limited loyalty, calculating which vehicle might carry him furthest.

At nineteen, in an interview with the Cambridge student magazine Varsity, Jenrick was asked what he wanted to be in ten years. His answer: “A millionaire businessman fighting my first election to Parliament.” He has been running towards something ever since. The question was always what.

So there is a longer story here, and it is worth telling.

The Rot

 He is, in many ways, the perfect example of Conservative rot. Consider the trajectory:

• the centrist Housing Secretary who approved luxury flats for a Tory donor to dodge £45 million in community levies;

• the Immigration Minister who painted over Mickey Mouse and Baloo at a children’s asylum centre because the murals were “too welcoming”;

• the leadership candidate who hung Union Jacks on lampposts as part of a campaign organised by Tommy Robinson’s allies;

• the shadow justice secretary warning in the Telegraph that “Islamists control our streets” and that Britain faces civilisational collapse, whatever that means

The fascinating thing about Jenrick is how transparent the calculation has always been. When he was Housing Secretary, he understood that the future lay in proximity to power and property developers. When he became Immigration Minister, he understood that the future lay in being seen to be cruel. When he lost the leadership election, he understood that the future lay in outflanking Badenoch from the right, in becoming the tribune of the disappointed, in speaking the unspeakable with an Cambridge accent.

Shedding a skin

Now he has understood, or thought he understood, that the future lies with Reform. That the Conservative Party is finished. That Farage’s operation is the coming thing.

Six weeks ago he told Times Radio: “It wasn’t very long ago that I was running to be leader of the Conservative Party so I’m not going anywhere.” Farage himself called him “Robert Remainer Generic” back in 2024, a dig at his Remain vote and his habit of shifting with the wind. But Farage will take what he can get. They all do. But Jenrick needs to remember Farage likes to be number one in his party.

He may even be right. Polls have the Conservatives at eighteen per cent, eleven points behind Reform. Farage talks openly of the local elections in May, when the Tories will “cease to be a national party.” Senior Conservatives are queuing up to have quiet conversations about their options.

Badenoch’s move is being described as decisive leadership. Perhaps. She has certainly removed the most obvious threat to her authority. But there is something desperate in it too, something that shows how deep the Conservative crisis runs.

Consider what Badenoch says in her video statement: “Disloyalty and dishonesty undermine trust in politics.” This from the party of Boris Johnson. Jenrick is not some outlier. He is the product. He is what fourteen years of government-by-culture-war produces: politicians who understand that there is no penalty for shamelessness, that ideology is costume to be changed with the seasons, that the only sin is being caught.

The Times reports that Jenrick attended shadow cabinet on Tuesday and “behaved as if nothing was going on.” He sat through an away day last week taking “copious notes about the party’s strategy.” This is presented as evidence of his treachery. It might equally be understood as evidence of his professionalism. He was doing exactly what everyone else in that room was doing: calculating his options, maintaining his position, waiting to see which way the wind blew.

What now?

What happens now? Jenrick will presumably complete his journey to Reform, though the manner of his departure has diminished his value. He arrives not as the all conquering defector but as the man who left his resignation speech lying around. Just another Zahawi. Farage will use him, of course. Another scalp. Another proof that the Conservative Party is collapsing. But the premium has been paid already. The headlines have been written. The damage to Badenoch has been done, though less damage than Jenrick intended.

The Conservative Party, meanwhile, continues its long rot. This is not a crisis that can be solved by sacking Robert Jenrick. The problem is not one man’s disloyalty but the whole thing falling apart: a party that has lost its purpose, its base, its reason for being. Badenoch talks of “rebuilding with strong principles.” But what are those principles? What does the Conservative Party believe, beyond its own right to govern?

Reform offers answers, reactionary and ugly though they are. Immigration. Islam. The treachery of elites. The betrayal of the “real” British people. These are not policies but grievances, not a political programme but a mood. Yet they are answers nonetheless. Jenrick understood this, which is why he spent the past year auditioning for the role of their champion.

The Conservative response has been to chase Reform rightward while pretending they are not chasing them at all. Badenoch talks of doing “politics differently.” But what she means is doing the same politics with better discipline. No psychodrama. No defections (whoopsie). No resignation speeches left lying around.

It will not be enough. The Conservative Party is dying not because Robert Jenrick is disloyal but because it has nothing left to say. It spent fourteen years in power and produced only chaos, corruption, decline, and Liz Truss PM. Now it offers itself as the alternative to its own record.

Jenrick saw this, at least. His treachery was rational, if nothing else. The ship is sinking. He tried to get off before the others. They caught him at the gangplank.

Anti-capitalist musings https://substack.com/@simonpearson1?