Within just a few hours of being publicly sacked from the shadow cabinet by Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, Robert Jenrick held a press conference to announce he was joining Reform. Badenoch cited “clear, irrefutable evidence” the Jenrick had been plotting to defect to Reform in a maximally damaging way.

In his press conference, Jenrick attacked his former party, painted a bleak view of the state of Britain and declared that Nigel Farage was the only person who could save it.

Jenrick has said that he doesn’t intend to trigger a by-election, which means the people of Newark, his constituency in the English East Midlands, have lost a Conservative MP and gained a Reform one. Newark will then, come a general election, become a test of Reform’s penetration into traditional Tory shire heartlands. Here, the 2024 election results already looked like a warning light: the Conservatives held on against Labour but Reform emerged as a meaningful third force. Newark is an affluent market-town and rural seat, where traditional Tory loyalty has long dominated.

Jenrick held Newark (contested under new boundaries) quite comfortably in 2024. He won 20,968 votes, taking 38.2% of the vote share, and ending up with a majority of 3,572 over Labour, which came second with 17,396 or 32.5% of the vote. Reform had 15.5% of the vote – 8,280 votes.

Newark’s vote in 2024

In the 2025 Nottinghamshire County Council elections, Reform gained control regionally (taking 40 of 66 seats), but the Conservatives held or narrowly beat........

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