Kemi Badenoch: 'Nigel Farage is doing my spring cleaning for me'

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has said Nigel Farage is “doing her spring cleaning” after Robert Jenrick joined Reform UK.

Speaking from an offshore training centre in Aberdeen on Friday morning, the Tory leader said that the people causing problems for the party are leaving.

“Nigel Farage is doing my spring cleaning for me, and I’m happy about that,” Badenoch told reporters.

“We are a stronger and more united party. The chaos is leaving the Conservative party, and I’m thrilled about that.”

Badenoch kicked the former shadow justice secretary out of the party on Thursday morning due to “irrefutable evidence that he was plotting in secret to defect in a way designed to be as damaging as possible” to his fellow Tories.

During a special Reform UK announcement on Thursday evening, Farage announced that Jenrick was in fact joining his party.

Badenoch was speaking as the Scottish Tories fell to fourth in a recent poll ahead of May’s Holyrood election, with a projection suggesting the party could win as few as 12 seats.

Jenrick is the latest in a series of high-profile Tories to switch allegiance to Reform UK, following former chancellor Nadhim Zahawi and sitting MP Danny Kruger.

However, Badenoch denied being worried about more defections and said the Tories are stronger since Jenrick left because “he simply wasn’t a team player”.

Badenoch finished a two-day visit north of the border on Friday by touring an offshore training centre with Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay and shadow Scottish secretary Andrew Bowie.