This was the moment Tory leader Kemi Badenoch launched a furious attack on Robert Jenrick for “knifing colleagues in the back”, just hours before the Reform UK MP revealed bombshell text messages confirming his claims.
Speaking to GB News, the Tory leader hit out at her ex-colleague and declared the claims made on the People’s Channel were a “lie”.
Mr Jenrick made the claim on GB News on Thursday night, telling Patrick Christys: “I remember writing a perfectly reasonable article arguing that some of the foreign aid budget should be redirected to defence to support our armed forces, a policy now backed by both Keir Starmer and the Conservatives.
“One of the whips, who is now the Chief Whip, messaged me to say I was ‘totally out of order’ and that there was a ‘special place in hell’ for people who made arguments like that.”
Following Mrs Badenoch’s on-air attack, Mr Jenrick took to social media to share a screenshot of the text messages, captioning the post: “They still won’t tell the truth.”
Rebutting Mr Jenrick’s claim, Mrs Badenoch told GB News: “He’s lying. He’s lying and I think it’s a real shame that he’s being allowed to air these views. He’s left the party, it’s time for him to move on.
“It is our policy, a policy that the Chief Whip has been enforcing to spend more money on defence and take it away from aid. I’ve given speeches about it, and I think this whole saga has not been about policy or policy disagreements, it is about character.”
Taking aim at the ex-Tory, she fumed: “We have somebody who was dishonest in our party, repeatedly betraying the confidences of his colleagues. He’s now going on TV trying to knife everyone in the back.
“Why doesn’t he just tell people what it is that he wants to offer, rather than just being the sort of person who is slagging off the organisation that he left?”
Assuring that her focus is firmly on leading the Conservatives, Mrs Badenoch said: “All of your viewers would have had bad leavers like that. And imagine if somebody left their company to go to another job, they should move on, shouldn’t they?
“We’re moving on, we’re talking about how we’re going to get Britain working again. I’m just finishing a farm visit where I’ve been talking to farmers about food security and the changing trade, trade relationships that are likely to happen with all of the stuff that’s going on around the world.
“And he’s busy going around news stations talking about ‘the Chief Whip said this to me’, and that’s it. It’s time for him to move on.”
Watch the moment here: https://www.gbnews.com/politics/robert-jenrick-kemi-badenoch-reform-uk-row-gb-news
