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The Guardian view on Robert Jenrick's defection: Britain's right is in a crisis of its own making | Editorial

The Guardian view on Robert Jenrick's defection: Britain's right is in a crisis of its own making | Editorial

A former Tory cabinet minister leaps to Reform and turns the issue of Kemi Badenoch’s authority into a test of Conservative survival Conservative party leader Kemi Badenoch’s decision to sack her shadow justice minister, Robert Jenrick, due to his impending defection was not so much about damage control as the first shot of civil war on the right. With Mr Jenrick shifting publicly to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, the issue became less about party discipline and more about the Conservatives’ political viability. Mr Jenrick says he left because Britain is broken and the Tories refused to acknowledge their role in breaking it. His claim rests on a self-serving distinction: that the damage was done by a party he served, but not by him. Despite her improving polls, Mrs Badenoch is still recovering from the devastating 2024 election loss. With ambitious colleagues coveting her job, she could not afford to tolerate dissent. By acting she exposed a deeper fragility in UK rightwing politics. Mr Jenrick was not merely a restless colleague but a plausible alternative centre of gravity. His embrace of hardline populism could attract Reform voters; he had support among party members; and he was ambitious enough to believe his moment had arrived. Mrs Badenoch calculated that delay, in such circumstances, could be fatal. Continue reading...

Treachery and stupidity to the fore as Robert Jenrick defects to Reform | John Crace

Treachery and stupidity to the fore as Robert Jenrick defects to Reform | John Crace

Even Nigel Farage looked taken aback by the news Honest Bob was about to join his flock, but he quickly saw the upside UK politics live – latest updates One is too many and a thousand never enough. Addiction is a tricky business. What starts as fun inevitably, insidiously tears away the soul. And there are signs that Nigel Farage’s press conference habit is getting badly out of control. He started off at one a week. Then that no longer worked. His narcissistic need craved more and more attention. So he upped it to two or three a week. Each time the buzz got less. He was mainlining more and more just to try and stand still. To keep the withdrawals at bay. Still not enough. So on Thursday, Nige upped the dose to two inside a day. This can only end in a spell in rehab. Followed by meetings of PA. Pressers Anonymous. Boom. The best laid plans etc. Nige was just six minutes into his first press conference of the day – the unveiling of the latest Tory defector, the meg-rich Malcolm Offord, whose lifetime achievements amount to buying yachts, as the leader or Reform Scotland – when it all kicked off. Malc had just signed a card renouncing his peerage, when every journalist in the room started looking at their phones. There was breaking news. Kemi Badenoch had just announced she was sacking Robert Jenrick from the shadow cabinet and the Tory party. Continue reading...

The Guardian view on Trump’s world: from Venezuela to Iran to Greenland, the madness is the method | Editorial

The Guardian view on Trump’s world: from Venezuela to Iran to Greenland, the madness is the method | Editorial

The US president delights in his inconsistency. But his short-term victories have profound long-term costs for his country and the world The Middle East was braced on Wednesday night, but the anxious petitioning of Gulf states and Iran’s attempts to appease the US president appeared to win out – at least for the moment. No bombs fell on Tehran. After all his threats, and with military options under discussion in Washington, Donald Trump stepped back , announcing that “the killing [of protesters] has stopped”. Despite the telecommunications blackout, it seems clear that a ruthless regime has shed still more blood than in previous protest crackdowns. Rights groups say that thousands have been killed and vast numbers arrested; one official spoke of 2,000 deaths. Witnesses compared the streets to a war zone. If the large-scale killings have indeed ebbed, that is probably because Iranians have been terrified out of the streets – for now, at least. Iran’s foreign minister chose Fox News to insist no hangings were imminent, in case the identity of the message’s one-man audience was in any doubt. But while retribution may have been postponed , it will not be cancelled as it should be: the calls for the regime’s downfall are seen as an existential threat. The Iranian authorities can wait. Mr Trump will move on. Continue reading...