Party ‘Faithfuls’? Kemi’s ‘TraiTories’ are heading for their final round table

SpAdatha Christie? Best I could do on the spot when Kemi Badenoch was suddenly made aware that Robert Jenrick was planning to defect from the Tories to Reform, potentially as soon as that very afternoon.

“I was presented with clear, irrefutable evidence that he was plotting in secret to defect,” Badenoch had posted on X yesterday morning, announcing that she had sacked Jenrick from the party with immediate effect. How did the news of Jenrick’s betrayal reach Badenoch? Not through any kind of deft political manoeuvring or Le Carré-worthy counter-intelligence, but because someone left a copy of his resignation speech lying around.

It was the sort of backstabbing plot twist that you expect to find on The Traitors – the big difference being that millions of people actually like The Traitors.

Having remained silent all day, Jenrick finally posted on X at 4:28pm simply saying “It’s time for the truth”, only for him and his “truth” to turn up several minutes late for his appointed time at a 4.30pm press conference.

This left Nigel Farage having to fill the dead air until he arrived by wondering aloud whether Jenrick had changed his mind about the defection after all, like a jilted bridegroom at a shotgun wedding. One assumed that Jenrick was still in the toilets giddily checking the notifications on his post, or lost in a stairwell, making sure every slick hair was in place on his military buzzcut. Ultimately, it turned out that the actual explanation was the one that you probably wouldn’t make up: that someone was late wheeling in a teleprompter for him to read his speech from. If only one had been left lying around ...

In any case, he offered no explanation for his tardiness, nor for why he was suddenly all in on Reform UK less than a week after telling a journalist he would never, ever defect from the Tory party, and mere months since an interview on Sky where he said: "I don't think Nigel is the bloke you want to have running your kids' schools or running your local hospital.”

Instead, he delivered an overlong speech reheating the old right-wing talking points about small boats and broken Britain, proving that even a bombshell defection can be made dull, so long as you’re uncharismatic enough.

It’s not surprising that Jenrick has decided to jump the sinking Tory ship. He’s been leaning further and further into hard right rhetoric about immigration over the past few years. You may remember the 2023 incident in which he ordered for murals of Disney characters to be painted over at a centre for welcoming unaccompanied child asylum seekers, a move so cartoonishly evil, it’s hard to believe it really happened.

It’s also not surprising that Jenrick’s departure from the Tory party has drawn out ministers and ex-ministers eager to claim that they always thought he was rubbish anyway. You do get the sense that many of these people love the drama, love getting to fire off their little zingers at each other, and talk up how they and they alone are acting in the interest of the British people in making what are transparently moves designed to keep them closest to whoever is in touching distance of power.

It’s depressing to watch as one of their supposedly beloved British people, though, because mass defection to Reform UK is about as bleak a prospect for the country as can be imagined.

“The British public are tired of political psychodrama, and so am I,” said Badenoch. Potentially true, as regards the public anyway.

Badenoch may have struck first, but a high-profile, emergency sacking of a senior member of her party doesn’t reflect well on her, and Jenrick hasn’t come out of it well either, managing to seem incompetent, smug, fickle and also somehow boring all in a single day.

But one man who doesn’t seem to be tiring of drama is Nigel Farage. The more melodramatic infighting the Tories engage in, the saner and more stable his party looks.

It’s difficult to say for certain when Farage is enjoying something because he perpetually has that look on his face like a toad who has just swallowed a particularly juicy fly, but he does seem to be relishing this.

I can’t wait for the next Round Table eviction…