Like other Conservative recruits to Reform UK, Robert Jenrick’s defection has come with no shortage of lacerating past comments about Nigel Farage and his other new colleagues.
When Nadhim Zahawi defected to Reform on Monday, Conservative headquarters were quick to unload the former chancellor’s previous comments about Farage on to social media.
In the case of Jenrick, below is just some of the ammunition they have been drawing on once again.
1. Jenrick on Farage
Today I took forward a bill to stop the two-tier sentencing rules that come into force in just 18 days. While Nigel Farage swanned off to Cheltenham to forget his troubles.”
March 2025 in a Facebook post
Why is Farage backing this policy? Has he cooked this up after one too many pints at his local? Has a joint found its way into his usual pack of Marlboro Gold?
May 2025 as Jenrick accused Labour and Reform of being “locked in a bidding war to splash out more in handouts” when it came to the two-child benefits cap.
If I knew standing with the people of Epping on Sunday was going to rattle you so much, I’d have offered you a lift!
August 2025 reposting a picture on X of Farage, after Jenrick had joined protesters outside a hotel housing asylum seekers in Essex.
2. Jenrick on Reform
I call bullshit. You’ve spent the last 48 hours calling me a ‘traitor’ for not drawing attention to a leaked spreadsheet without special forces and MI6 officers’ names on.
But we’re meant to believe this tweet attacking me as a traitor for having a Jewish wife & family was liked ‘accidentally’ by ‘one of the team’. You must think we’re all thick.
No. The mask has slipped. Likes are private. You thought nobody would ever know. Unfortunately for you, the racist account who posted the tweet and could see the likes exposed you. Reform should give you the boot.
July 2025 after Reform’s former chair Zia Yusuf said “one of the team” who posted to his X account had accidentally pressed like on an “awful antisemitic tweet”.
3. Farage on Jenrick
Jenrick is a fraud. I’ve always thought so, this quote proves it.
August 2025 under an image of Jenrick against the background of a photo of people arriving on an English beach, with a quote from November 2022 when Jenrick, then the immigration minister, said: “More hotels have been coming online almost every month. What I have done is to procure even more.”
Robert Generic
Various occasions, as recently as December. A Trumpian nickname for a man whom Farage and others on the right have long lambasted for the original sin of opposing Brexit.
When Robert Jenrick was immigration minister he grew the number of illegal migrants living in free hotels to 56,000. He is no friend of Epping.
August 2025 at a Reform press conference.
