We posted this video before midday today, but another recording delayed me from sharing it here.
The transcript is as follows:
How toxic do you have to be to be expelled from the Conservative Party?
It's a question I thought would be answered in the case of Robert Jenrick because he is a toxic individual, a man who has opposed multiculturalism, who has been absolutely repugnant on issues around migration and who has been supporting people who clearly are racist in the UK, with comments he has made about communities where large numbers of people from ethnic minorities live.
I presume that would be sufficient for them to throw him out, but no, he isn't being thrown out for that reason. Instead, he's being thrown out because there's clear evidence that he was leaving for Reform anyway, where no doubt his toxic opinions will be welcomed with open arms.
So we haven't got an answer to the question of how toxic you have to be to be thrown out of the Conservative Party, because Robert Jenrick was not expelled for his views. He was expelled for his disloyalty, and to me, that is deeply worrying. His views should have been enough to have had him expelled from a party that once used to talk about one-nation politics. He did not promote one-nation. He promoted division, and anger, and difference, and the subjection of large numbers of people to what is plain, straightforward prejudice.
He should have been expelled for that. He hasn't been. The Conservative Party, as a result, has shown its true colours in this episode. You can be as toxic as you like and be a Tory now. What you can't be is disloyal to the leader. That shows they're all about power without conscience, and that's why they, alongside Nigel Farage, do not deserve power in this country.
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Absolutely correct.
I wonder how Farage expects to gain from welcoming someone who he has been scathing towards in the recent past?
More importantly, do Reform not realise that the tories are proven as toxic by the hiding they were given in 2024? Do Reform expect to improve their standing with voters by joining up with people who are more toxic than themselves?
The outcome I see is a drop in their ratings over the coming months and a commensurate increase in the popularity of other parties, except Labour who are almost beyond redemption, but not entirely a lost cause just yet.
I’ve always said he needs to be watched.
I knew this was going to happen.
Farage, about an hour ago, following Jenrick’s defection, per the Guardian:
“I believe is a big day in the realignment of the genuine centre-right of this country, I think Rob coming will bring a lot, lot more people and voters to us.”
It’s a very scary day in UK politics, when a man like Jenrick is identified as “centre-right”!
Agreed
And note, they described anyone who disagree with them as “far left”.
Really?
I guess the Tories thought that having a minority ethnic leader would be a sufficient box tick to mop up any criticism in that direction.
At least with Reform we know what level of obnoxiousness we’re dealing with. Scant consolation.
Wasnt Jenrick behind Advance?
I really struggle to believe that people want refoem in.
In the North west yesterday, 4 defected to 3 in the Wirral and the green candidate in St Helens.
How are reform going to make life any better, for anyone?
Can you explain what your third paragraph means?
Apologies, I deleted words by mistake before I posted.
Yesterday – 14th Jan – 3 Wirral MPs defected to Reform. I believe they were conservatives. Additionally, a 4th MP, from St Helens, who I know was a Green, also defected to Reform.
You nmean councillors?
If the Public Order Acts mean anything he (and Braverman) should have been sued for hate speech when saying ‘Islamists’ have taken over swathes of the country – and police don’t dare go there. Can an ordinary citizen ask the CPS or the police to take action?
If Jenrick is ‘centre-right’ Harold Macmillan was ultra left.
I still expect Reform and Tories to do some kind of deal for the next GE.
I have to say, I think the last much less likely now.
What this whole Jenrick episode really exposes isn’t just the toxicity of one politician — it’s the fact that the Conservative Party no longer has any ideological red lines at all. The only thing that gets you expelled now is disloyalty, not prejudice, not division, not the deliberate stoking of fear.
But there’s a deeper truth sitting underneath all this that no one in Westminster seems willing to confront.
The right in the UK has been running on fumes for years.
It has extracted everything it can from the country — economically, socially, institutionally — and now it’s eating itself because there’s nothing left to offer except anger and scapegoats.
Reform and the Conservatives aren’t two competing visions.
They’re two exhausted branches of the same politics, fighting over who gets to own the wreckage.
And that’s why the “toxicity threshold” doesn’t matter anymore.
When a political project has run out of ideas, the only thing it can police is loyalty.
The real danger isn’t Jenrick joining Reform.
It’s that both parties are still shaping the national conversation long after their politics has stopped being capable of rebuilding anything.
Until the UK breaks with this whole era — not just one party or one personality — we’re going to keep seeing the same cycle:
division, decline, and a political class more interested in internal purity tests than in the country they’re supposed to serve.