Robert Jenrick isn’t often compared to Groucho Marx, but there’s something apposite about the latter’s line, ‘I don’t want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member’. Clearly Jenrick, who was sacked by Tory leader Kemi Badenoch yesterday before being unveiled as Reform’s latest recruit, does want to be a member of Reform. He began talks with Tim Montgomerie and then Nigel Farage last September, we learned yesterday – and, equally clearly, Reform is happy to have him as a member. But in both cases, only sort of.

Jenrick has spent the past few years telling everyone why he would never want to be a member of Reform and how vile it is

Jenrick has spent the past few years telling everyone why he would never want to be a member of Reform and how vile it, Nigel Farage and just about anyone connected to Reform really is. The receipts, as they say, are everywhere. But 180 degree turns are hardly unprecedented in politics, especially for those like Jenrick, for whom The Self is less a Jungian concept........

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