The Conservative Party has endured more defections in recent months than Manchester United have had managers. Nadine Dorries, Jake Berry, Nadhim Zahawi, and now Robert Jenrick—all trotting off to Reform UK with the solemn swagger of statespeople making a principled stand.
Let’s be honest: it’s nothing of the sort.
This isn’t a political migration based on ideology. It’s not even about policy. It’s about survival—their own. Reform is becoming the political equivalent of a witness protection programme for ex-ministers whose careers have hit the buffers. And Jenrick, a man who once fancied himself as a future Conservative leader, is the clearest case study. He now knows the Tory membership won’t give him a second look, so he’s jumped ship in the hope Nigel Farage will.
But here’s the twist: this exodus might be the best thing that could happen to the Conservative Party.
Why? Because these defections are clearing the decks. The party is quietly shedding the figures who have spent years fighting internal battles, leaking, briefing, back-stabbing, and auditioning for GB News slots. Reform is hoovering them up like a political charity shop—“unwanted former ministers accepted, no questions asked.”
That leaves space—finally—for Conservative renewal. As long ago as 1992, John Major was complaining about Tory wars over the EU, and challenging his ‘bastards’ Since David Cameron stood down as PM following the disastrous decision to Brexit, the Conservatives have been more interested in gesture and personality politics than the issues that matter to people. And they lost their natural advantage of being seen as the party of business, enterprise, and the economy – with Boris Johnson and Lix Truss, in particular, acting like drunken sailors in charge of a ship that had badly lost its way.
The exodus of has-been’s, Labour’s woes and increasingly fractious relationship with business, and a Reform UK party that appears to have peaked in the polls, puts the Tories and Kemi Badenoch, somewhat unexpectedly, back in the game.
Badenoch’s appeal rests on authenticity and discipline—two qualities that have been in short supply among the defectors. The more the “I-was-once-a-minister-you-know” brigade departs, the more oxygen she has to rebuild what’s left of the party into something coherent, modern, and electorally relevant.
Reform might think it’s landing big scalps. It’s recruiting political deadwood.
In politics, as in business, sometimes your future arrives not through who joins you, but through who leaves.
And on that score, Kemi Badenoch may just be having the best week of her leadership yet.
