Samizdata quote of the day – who did Robert Jenrick throw under the bus?

Thomas Fairfax (Yorkshire) · Slogans & Quotations · UK affairs

I can’t kid myself any more. The party hasn’t changed… and it won’t. The bulk of the party don’t get it. Don’t have the stomach for the radical change this country needs. In opposition, it’s easy to paper over these cracks, but the divisions – the delusions – are still there. And if we don’t get the next Government right, Britain will likely slip beyond the point of repair. Everything is on this. I cannot, in good conscience, stick with a party that’s failed so badly, that isn’t sorry and hasn’t changed. That I know in my heart won’t… can’t… deliver what’s needed. That’s why I resolved to leave.

– Robert Jenrick

January 17th, 2026 |

6 comments to Samizdata quote of the day – who did Robert Jenrick throw under the bus?

• Paul Marks.

  January 17, 2026 at 9:09 am

  It was a powerful attack.

  I do not know if the account of the Cabinet and Shadow Cabinet is accurate – but if (if) it is, then the attack was not just powerful, it had a foundation.

  Kemi Badenoch has laid out good policies (on government spending, immigration, the ECHR and so on) – arguably better (yes BETTER) than the policies that Nigel Farage has laid out – but Robert Jenrick claims that the Parliamentary Party would not support Kemi Badenoch in practice to actually DELIVER these policies – no more than they supported Liz Truss when the establishment sabotaged her government.

  The one weakness in the speech of Robert Jenrick (and I did listen to it – from start to finish) was that he did not mention the institutional (institutional) barriers – the officials and “experts”.

  As former Prime Minister Liz Truss (and others) have pointed out – in Britain it is unelected officials and “experts” who have the real power (the Bank of England and so on), and this is a horrible state-of-affairs.

• Lee Moore

  January 17, 2026 at 9:20 am

  Unlike in America, where the institutional structure is ossified, in the UK it is actually possible to deal with the institutional barriers that Paul mentions. But, because the barriers include the courts and the House of Lords, as well as the Blob, it is not possible to deal with the institutional barriers without waiting a year for the Parliament Act to tick over.

  This seems to me not a bad thing. A Reform government can explain on Day 1 that it isn’t actually the government for the first year, and it can spent that time getting its ducks in a row legislatively and in terms of personnel. And starting on the process of cutting public spending – using the Money Bill trick. And resiling from the many treaties that need resiling from.

  Meanwhile waiting a year while the House of Lords has hissy fits, and the courts order Ministers to drink caster oil will help persuade the persuadable that the new government is not a fascist dictatoship but a respectable rule of law bunch.

• david morris

  January 17, 2026 at 10:30 am

  Did he bring out a cut onion from his pocket during his “off the cuff” speech ?

  Spare me the sanctimonious twaddle, Bobby.

  You – as a professional politico – are part & parcel of the problem this country faces.

• Dan Souter

  January 17, 2026 at 11:00 am

  The reality of “Opportunistic chancer is given the bum’s rush” probably isn’t the truth Generic Bobby wants on his tombstone.

  I’d imagine that defanging the Tories of a potential leader and creating chaos to boot was too much of a temptation to miss for Nigel.

• Toby James

  January 17, 2026 at 11:46 am

  There are plenty of warning signs about the Farage ego project, but the easily dislikeable Jenrick is not wrong in his analysis. I rather like Kemi, but she has an impossible task. How can anyone trust the ‘(Not at all) Conservative (dedicated to eroding freedoms, locking households up, encouraging the dregs of humanity to come here and live at our expense, force-injecting people with poison and trash the economy while we’re having a) Party, not least while the number of true Conservatives in the Party in the Commons is probably down to single figures.

  At least Jenrick has energy, and seems to have embraced his latest set of beliefs with a convert’s zeal. I’m much more concerned about Zadawi, who is a shady pro-immigration opportunist.

  For all the attempts by the Telegraph, Rees-Mogg and Hannan to foster the idea of a Tory/Reform alliance, on the spurious grounds that the Tories are a Right wing party, Farage’s only viable strategy is the destroy the Tories, thus becoming the only alternative to some sort of godawful left alliance. Outside Ulster, every other Party, Green, Labour, LibDems, SNP or Plaid are some shade of Left.

• Perry de Havilland (Prague)

  January 17, 2026 at 11:59 am

  Farage’s only viable strategy is the destroy the Tories, thus becoming the only alternative to some sort of godawful left alliance.

  Reform understands that.

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