Joe Pike (1:57)

And it's Joe pike in New Broadcasting House.

Adam Fleming (1:59)

Laura, I'm out of practice of you being in a cupboard at Westminster and not in the room with me, but I can.

Laura Kuenssberg (2:03)

Me too. Me too. It feels like very retro but quite fun all the same. Yes.

Adam Fleming (2:07)

So we played the interview you did with Robert Jenrick earlier in the newscast feed. So if people want to listen to the whole thing, it is there. Give me your kind of big initial thoughts kind of after you walked out the room.

Laura Kuenssberg (2:18)

1. He's absolutely deadly serious about what he's done which, if you followed Robert Jenrick for years, that's not surprising. He's a very, very serious politician. Even though some people would mock him, some people admire him, but some people mock him for doing things like, you know, chasing fair dodgers on the tube. So he's deadly serious about this. Two there is now undergoing a poisonous, really poisonous row between him and his supporters and the Tories he's just left behind. But in the medium term, I think this is. It's a really big deal. I think it's the biggest defection so far. I think it's the one that matters most for all sorts of reasons. He's not a former. He's still in Parliament. He knows how to operate Parliament, he knows how to grab the mic, he knows how to get attention and he's a very canny political operator. So I suppose my main big thought after it is this is genuinely a big deal. And although he was sort of caught in the act, which precipitated him getting out there more quickly than he had planned, it's big, he's serious and it could make a serious difference. But there's all sorts of risks, too.

Adam Fleming (3:21)

And, Joe, we'll talk about the timeline about his departure, because you and Laura have found out more things about that in the last 24 hours. But Laura just focusing on, kind of on the future. You also asked about what he's actually going to do in reform.

Laura Kuenssberg (3:32)

Yeah, so he said he hasn't been promised a job. I think we can imagine that he will hope to get something very prominent. That might be where some of the problems come. Right. Because Reform, like any political party, is full of big characters. It's full of people who are ambitious. Robert Jenrick has more experience than most of his new colleagues. He's been in government recently. He's been in the Shadow Cabinet until yesterday. So he's going to be after something big. Maybe that would be a wannabe Reform Chancellor, maybe it would be a wannabe Reform Home Secretary. But he said he hasn't been promised anything, I think, also, and you could see from. In that interview, we asked him what he thought of reform policy on lifting the child benefit cap, allowing British families with more than two kids to claim more benefits. That's not the Tory policy. And when I asked him about that, he sort of said, oh, the party needs to think it through now. One of the reasons Robert Jenwick left the Tory Party was he felt restricted and he didn't want to take what he thought was too safe a party line. How is he going to feel in Reform UK if he's not allowed to speak out. So I think there are all sorts of potential risks down the track. You know, politics right now is very combustible. He's a very strong character. He's deadly serious about his own ambition. Although there's a. There's an interesting moment in the interview when he said, this isn't about personal ambition for me, it's about ambition for the country. How many politicians do we know where personal ambition is not a factor?

Joe Pike (5:01)

Hmm.

Laura Kuenssberg (5:02)

Think on that. But I think he's really thought about this. You know, there's. There's no doubt in my mind, having talked to him for about half an hour, he has really thought about this. His fundamental analysis, and newscasters will make their own judgment, is basically the Tories right now are not willing enough to say, you know what, the country's in such a pickle. Much of it was our fault and we have to talk about things in a very different, radical way. That's his fundamental analysis. So I think it's more than him just thinking, oh, well, Reform are doing well in the poll, so I'll just jump. It's more than that, but it is, you know, as ever, there's lots of risk here, but there's also lots of potential reward.

Adam Fleming (5:42)

And, Laura, I know you've got to dash off and do another interview in a second, but just one last thing. This phrase that's doing the rounds today, partly from Robert Jenk, unite the rights. Just unpack that, what that actually means.

Laura Kuenssberg (5:52)

Well, look, there's a kind of death grudge match going on, right, between the Tories who are trying to survive, and Reform, who are trying to prepare for government. They're trying to persuade the country that they are really, really up for it. If those two parties keep fighting each other, they will, by the simple, big mathematical realities of our politics, they will split the vote on the right and therefore the logic go. That means it's more likely that Labour will manage to keep power when we get eventually to the next general election. If either reform can kill off the Tories, or, as would seem unlikely at the moment, the Tories can kill off Reform, well, then the uniting the right wing voters, as one big block would, the maths would suggest, have enough support to have a decent chance of getting Labour out of power. So for Robert Jenk to sit there today and say, ah, this is about uniting the right, you think, well, at the moment, it's really not at all. Because these two parties, Tory and Reform, are going at each other with Reform in the ascendants. If what he's trying to do, what Nigel Farage says he wants to do, is bring the rate of British politics together, well, then you do have one big bloc that would be in a better position to beat the Labour government. Couple of problems with that. One is, look, actually, lots of reform voters are former Labour voters. And not all reform policies, would you say are kind of of the right anyway. They want to nationalize steel, for example, and as we've already talked about, they do want to keep on with some welfare payments that the Tories had got rid of. But there's also just this question about reform. If they're really trying to show themselves to be insurgents and new and radical and fresh and bold, well, of course, having lots of people who used to be in government, who the public recognize from years of Tory failure, they would say, well, that doesn't really help his cause as presenting to the nation reform as something genuinely new. So there are all sorts of kind of complexities, but, yeah, that's what he's talking about. Unite the right. But Unite the right is a phrase that at the moment doesn't really match the reality of what is happening between reform and the Conservatives. And there is a just risk that they spend so much time fighting each other rather than fighting the Labour Party, they end up, you know, missing some of the opportunities that are obviously there for them to take.

Adam Fleming (8:11)

Laura, lovely to be reunited with you. Can you say who your next interviewee is? Or is that. Do you have to wait till Sunday morning?

Laura Kuenssberg (8:16)

You'll have to wait till. I'll tell newscasters tomorrow. Okay. Once it's in the can, it's either Adam, either Taylor Swift, the Dalai Lama, or, I don't know, who else should.

Adam Fleming (8:29)

We say, Paddington Bear?

Laura Kuenssberg (8:31)

The Paddington. There we go.

Joe Pike (8:33)

None of them.

Adam Fleming (8:34)

None of them. Oh, right. None of them.

Laura Kuenssberg (8:35)

None of them. I was gonna do a multiple choice, but. No, I thought I was gonna do a multiple choice.

Adam Fleming (8:38)

Well, I'll be listening. I'll be listening, whoever it ends up being. So break a leg.

Joe Pike (8:42)

See you.

Laura Kuenssberg (8:43)

Okay.

Joe Pike (8:44)

Yeah.

Adam Fleming (8:44)

Joe, what's your take on. On. On Unite the Right? Because actually, that is a phrase that has been doing the rounds of British politics for a little while now, isn't it? Ever since, I don't know, actually, since.

Joe Pike (8:54)

The rise of, like, ukip. Absolutely. And there's no evidence that Cami Badenok, especially as poll suggest her position may be slightly improving, wants to take the offer from Robert Genrick. What I found most fascinating about how Robert Jenk was in Laura's interview trying to frame his decision was this idea that this move, seemingly of treachery, was actually about principle. Now, that's a tactic often used by defectors. He was saying, this is not about my personal ambition, this is about the good of the country. And talking to his allies, people who work with him, they. They back that up. But it is also. I mean, it's a. It's sort of a bold play. And newscasts, I suppose, will have their views. Whether this is all about the country and whether there was any personal ambition, part of the consideration.

Adam Fleming (9:45)

Well, because the big timeline for the Robert Genrick journey, as we discussed in the previous episode of Newscast, is he started off in 2014 as quite sort of Cameroon, like, quite signed up to the David Cameron project. Then he was very much a member of kind of like the new generation in the sort of post Cameron, post Theresa May world. And he wrote that article with Rishi Sunak and Oliver Dowden backing Boris Johnson to be the leader. Then he went into the Home Office as a minister. Sorry, he'd been the Community Secretary, hadn't he, before, during COVID Then he went online. Then he went. Yeah, because of the stuff about planning and Richard Desmond. Then he went to the Home Office and then he sensationally resigned from the Home Office because he said that basically he'd been confronted with a system that was broken and that politicians didn't have control over who had come into the. Into the country. And then kind of Robert Jenrick, version 5.0 was up against Kemi Badenoc in the Tory leadership contest in 2024. And then we get to know. So that I'm just giving newscasters the evidence base so they can reach their own judgment on whether this is like. This is the. This is the inevitable episode in that journey, or whether he's gone in a different direction. Right, scrolling back the last 24 hours, what. What sort of things have you learned about how this all happened?

Joe Pike (10:59)

I think there were two key moments or two key meetings it's worth being aware of. One was Shadow Cabinet on Wednesday afternoon, evening. That is held in the Shadow Cabinet Room in the centre of Parliament, very close to where the speaker lives, in this grand room with a very long baize table. It's where Thatcher's Shadow Cabinet were. It's where Cameron and Ned Miliband and Jeremy Corbyn, all sorts of people, Neil Kinnock have been. And Robert Jenrick was sitting there on Wednesday afternoon, looking, I'm told, pretty chipper, contributing to discussions about foreign policy. But as that wrapped up up at about 5pm, Cami Badenot was taken aside by her aides and shown the details of this defection speech, this leak from the heart of Robert Genrick's office. In particular the details of the attacks he was going to make about particular people in the shadow cabinet, Pretty Patel and Mel Stride. And then Cami Badenoch moved to her offices, the Leader of the Opposition's offices, Lotto, as it's known in Parliament, on the periphery of the parliamentary estate.

Adam Fleming (12:12)

This is a great geography lesson.

Joe Pike (12:14)

Human Google Maps, huddling with about eight people, including her Chief Whip, including the party chair and various advisors, trying to work out what to do next. And of course there was one option which is often chosen in politics, which is to wait to toss something into the long grass, give it a day or so. The big unknown though, was if Robert Jenrick, seemingly from this leak, was going to move, when could it be? As soon as the next day, when they knew there was a reform news conference in London that was actually supposed to be about local elections being delayed. And Kemi Badenoch, I'm told, decided there she needed to act and act fast. And the important background is that for a very long time, for more than a year almost since she'd taken over as leader, they had been her team on high alert for Robert, Jenny Henrich, either mounting some form of leadership campaign pain and being on maneuvers, either being on some form of leadership campaign maneuvers or planning to defect. And they'd been picking up signs, including one meeting, a dinner with Nigel Farage in December, that things were moving. They didn't of course realize what we now know from Farage, that over a number of months back to September, there were multiple one to one meetings. Cohen Badlock. So she made that decision on Wednesday night, got up incredibly early pre dawn on Thursday morning so she could record that video at home, which I can.

Adam Fleming (13:47)

Kind of tell because it's got one of those blurred out zoom backgrounds so that you can't really see where she is, which makes me always think that they're doing it at home.

Joe Pike (13:55)

And it was grainy, it wasn't high quality and also, I mean my sense of the lighting was it looked like it was at night. This was definitely pre dawn. Her team won't tell me what time her alarm was set to get downstairs to record it. But she had a flight at about 8 o' clock to go to Scotland to do some campaigning. So it was really, really early.

Adam Fleming (14:13)

And by getting, and we know for an 8am flight you're getting up pretty.

Joe Pike (14:16)

Early, you're getting up Very, very early. And she then sort of a key part of the communications and press plan around this big move was done. But it was later that day, around 11:00 o', clock, that Rebecca Harris, the Chief Whip, phoned up Robert Jenrick. He denied planning to defect. The call ended abruptly and very soon after, you know, the button was pressed on the, on the account, on the, on the Twitter account, on the X account and the video came out. So one key meeting was this Shadow Cabinet on Wednesday evening. But there was another meeting which Robert Downey actually referenced in his defection speech, which was this away day at a venue overlooking the Tower of London, a place of course, that, that traitors ironically spent time hundreds of years ago. And that is where I'm told Robert Jenning was withdrawn with his chair back from the table, but also taking copious notes. I'm not sure how you can do both. Maybe he very long arms. Yeah, maybe. And seeming, I'm told, withdrawn, disengaged. And also he and his team talk about this key moment, this discussion around whether Britain was broken. There being disagreements between the Shadow Cabinet, whether Britain was broken or not, and some agreeing with Robert Jenrick that Britain in their eyes was broken, but the Conservatives couldn't say it because of their role, role in breaking in it. As for Generic's team, their argument, which I think fits with it with the fact this speech was all written, is that he had made up his mind and unfortunately there was somebody who had access to his office who, who spotted.

Adam Fleming (16:03)

This document and there's great speculation about whether the person who had access to his office was actually some kind of mole. This is getting so dramatic now, who had been put there by Kemi Badenok's team to keep an eye on him. And we just don't know actually the mechanics of who did what when.

Joe Pike (16:17)

And both sides, Team Badenock and Team Generic, seem to not want to go into the details of that, I think presumably to protect whoever it is, presumably because it's a staffer who's not in the public eye, maybe quite young. I don't know who it is, but they've made probably quite a difficult decision. It's not clear if this is a long term operation or one particular leak, but that was decisive because it was so clear. After that, Robert Jenrick had a brief call with Nigel Farage as he left Scotland and I'm told the contents of that conversation were, let's do it, it's on, let's do it today. And then he turned up a little bit late for the news conference.

Adam Fleming (16:58)

And Patrick Maguire in the Times, often in newscast as a pundit, has got a great column because spent the day with Nigel Farage yesterday, just presumably for like some profile he was doing or just to be a good journalist. And, yeah, Farage apparently is in his plane having a glass of champagne in the afternoon on his way to London. So is that because he usually has a tipple of Champagne at about 3 when he's traveling, or is it because he was celebrating the coup of getting Robert Jenrick? We do not know.

Joe Pike (17:24)

I think he was celebrating the coup. It hadn't worked out as Robert Jenrick wanted. Yes, Cami Badenoch did you know, she was decisive, she had some control here. But ultimately, by the end of yesterday, by the time the newspaper deadlines were happening, by the time people were getting into their cars and turning on the radio or turning on BBC1 at 6 o', clock, the top line wasn't Kemi Badenoch sacked Robert Jenrick, it's that he's moved and it is a massive defection. And all the MPs I'm speaking to in the Tory Party are discussing who they think might be next.

Adam Fleming (18:02)

I know. Are you picking up any ideas of who might be next and how many of them there might be? It's an impossible question to answer.

Joe Pike (18:09)

It's difficult because people obviously deny it. But, I mean, I asked one shadow Cabinet minister yesterday this question and I posited the name Sweller Braverman, who was.

Adam Fleming (18:21)

Name checked in Robert Jenrick's speech yesterday.

Joe Pike (18:23)

When he hit the leap and has been in the past a leadership contender, has not dissimilar, completely dissimilar views to him on immigration. Of course, she was Home Secretary and this Shadow Cabinet minister, who's very close to Kimmy Badenoch said, well, it wouldn't be a surprise, would it? Which I thought was an interesting way to tackle that question, because surely you want to bring everyone into the big tent. You are.

Adam Fleming (18:48)

Well, you say that, but Kemi Badenok's line today is, if there's more of you who want to go, just go. And she talked about, she actually thanked Nigel Farage for doing her spring cleaning for her.

Joe Pike (18:58)

I think there is, if you speak to people close to Kemi Badenok, I think they realize that this has not just fast forwarded, sped up, short circuited a defection, it's also removed a major leadership contender. But also there has been this massive anxiety amongst her team and people are loyal to her for such a long time about Robert Henrick. During the party conference, they were worried that he would stage some big event, he would act like Boris Johnson did in Theresa May's time when he was. He was not in government, he was not Prime Minister and distract and.

Adam Fleming (19:36)

And he didn't. And we now know that while he wasn't, he was also having conversations with Reform uk because the conversations with Reform started in September and Tory Party conference was in October.

Joe Pike (19:46)

Roy Genrick was having conversation, not Boris Johnson. Not.

Adam Fleming (19:48)

Did I say Boris Johnson?

Joe Pike (19:49)

No, no, you didn't. But just in case. Misinterpreted. Yeah, exactly.

Adam Fleming (19:53)

Although some people would love it if Boris Johnson went to Reform. And actually lots of Boris Johnson's acolytes are there as well.

Joe Pike (19:58)

Oh, yeah. I mean, Doris needed in. Doris being one of the most prominent ones. And you touch on that key. Amazing part of the sort of timeline here, Adam, which is that at the moment, Kemi Badenoch's team were so worried about Robert Jenrick springing some surprise at this key event for her, a party conference, which actually they argue was a sort of turning point in strengthening her leadership. Actually, he'd already been reaching out to reformed people a month before and that decision, even though it hadn't been made, I mean, the journey had definitely begun.

Adam Fleming (20:31)

And in terms of what comes next, obviously Laura's interview with Robert Jenrick is out there. We'll see who pops up over the weekend. Does Gabby Badock do a big interview? But everyone is waiting for Tuesday now because Nigel Farage has hinted very heavily, in fact, he just said. He didn't even hint it. There's going to be a Labor defection unveiled on Tuesday and who do you.

Joe Pike (20:52)

Think it's going to be? I mean, he didn't say it's going.

Adam Fleming (20:53)

To be the last person to know.

Joe Pike (20:55)

I mean, it's. Is it an mp? Is it a former mp because most of his defection to former Conservative mp. So it might not be somebody at the heart of politics. I'm not sure it'll be somebody of the seniority and profile of Robert Jenrick. Is it someone in the House of Lords, a prominent left wing commentator?

Adam Fleming (21:13)

Perhaps this was his double edged sword. Now for Farage, because A, that the latest affection was huge and B, he's now trailed it so far in advance. That builds up expectations. And so if it's somebody not great, then it looks less good.

Joe Pike (21:28)

It does. But I suppose building up an expectation is part of the sort of showmanship. I think what him and his team are trying to do though, and this Labour defection may help them, is try and get away from the idea they're just picking up disgruntled Conservatives. They don't want to be attacked as they are being by other opposition parties, including labor, as recruiting various people who labor argue wrecked the. Wrecked the country and ran government departments badly and are responsible for the problems the UK is facing. If you are an insurgent party, it's hard to do that with too many people from the Conservative years. But the argument you get from Farage's team and from Jemrich's team is that, that, oh, if you're saying we're a one man band and we don't have people to put together a strong cabinet, well, look, we've got in particular Robert Jenrick. And Robert Jenrick's allies say if you think reform is not serious, well, Robert Jenrick is a very serious person. He will make reform that.

Adam Fleming (22:29)

And Joe, just as we were talking there, we got some breaking news on another story that has been big this week, which is the Chief Constable of West Midlands, Craig Guildford is going to announce his retirement later this afternoon.

Joe Pike (22:40)

I think another maybe example of somebody jumping before they were pushed. Craig Guildford has been under intense pressure and it's very hard to find anybody in Parliament apart from one independent MP who think he should stay. Shaban Mahmoud, the Home Secretary has said she's lost confidence in her. She seems so frustrated by the fact that she doesn't have the power to sack him. That's held by the West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner that she wants to change the law to allow Home Secretaries once again to sack senior police officers. I think it wasn't just the decision around this football match and whether Israeli fans could attend it, but also the justification afterwards and the evidence for that and the fact that this Chief Constable, Craig Guildford, didn't seem to be entirely honest to MPs, really sealed his fate.

Adam Fleming (23:34)

And ending where we began, with Kemi Badenok discovering Robert Jenrick was planning to defect, or at least suspecting he was going to. We've had some great suggestions, suggestions for our Kemi Badenok detective pun competition. Kate sparshat suggests chem I5.

Joe Pike (23:48)

Very good.

Adam Fleming (23:48)

And Joe from Sheffield offers up Kemington Steel. Do you know what that's a reference to, Joe?

Joe Pike (23:53)

No.

Adam Fleming (23:54)

Pierce Brosnan played a very suave detective in the 80s and 90s called Remington Steel.

Joe Pike (23:59)

Did he?

Adam Fleming (24:00)

Which actually prevented him becoming James Bond when Timothy Dalton got the job. How's that for pub quiz trivia? Right, that's definitely enough. NEWSCAST Laura and Paddy will be back with your next helping on Saturday.

Joe Pike (24:12)

Bye bye, Bye bye.

Laura Kuenssberg (24:15)

NEWSCAST NEWSCAST from the BBC.

Joe Pike (24:17)

Well, thank you for making it to the end of another newscast. You clearly ooze stamina. Can I gently encourage you to subscribe to us on BBC Sounds? And then, without having to do anything else, our meandering chat will miraculously make its way to your phone. Foreign.

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