Robert Jenrick lashed out after a Good Morning Britain presenter asked if he has “defector’s remorse” over leaving the Tories to join Reform UK.
Jenrick used to serve in the Tory government and was part of Kemi Badenoch’s shadow cabinet before he joined Nigel Farage’s party in January.
But, after leading the opinion polls for more than a year, Reform has fallen back in the last few months as it lurched from controversy to controversy.
YouGov puts Reform in third place on 20% behind the Conservatives on 22% and Labour 27% in its most recent survey.
So Good Morning Britain presenter Paul Brand asked the former Tory: ”I just wonder overall, Robert Jenrick, whether you’ve got defector’s remorse.
“You know you’re trailing in the polls now as Reform you gave a speech to half-empty hall this week.
“Councillors have been revealed to be racist within your party. This is not quite the career move you’d hoped it would be, surely.”
Reform UK councillors and candidates were accused of “extreme racism” in an undercover ITV investigation earlier this month.
Jenrick replied: “Paul, you’re a left-wing commentator and activist.”
Brand asked where the proof for such a claim was, but Jenrick jumped in: “You obviously don’t want Reform to succeed. Because you always just ask negative questions about Reform like that.”
Brand hit back: “We ask robust questions of all the political parties you’re talking to the journalist who helped reveal the partygate scandal.
“I’ve investigated anti-semitism in the Labour Party. This is this is what parties say when they feel uncomfortable, quite frankly, Mr Jenrick.”
Jenrick replied: “What you just said wasn’t journalism, it was editoralising. You were making your own point.”
He continued: “We’ve got 280,000 members. Of course you can fill a room just because there was one event in which not so many people were invited as they should have been. We’re the biggest political party in this country.
“So let’s not talk about silly trivia issues like that.”
Fellow presenter Ranvir Singh then asked if Jenrick would condemn comments from a Reform associate, Raheem Kassam, after he called Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch a “Nigerian scammer”.
Jenrick said he did not think that remark was racist.
He insisted: “I don’t think it was and what you want to do, let’s be clear, is waste the whole of this interview when we could be talking about all the things that actually matter to people.”
Labour chair Bridget Phillipson slammed the interview, saying: “Sometimes Robert Jenrick must look in the mirror and not even recognise himself.
“Reform’s top team simply refuse to call out blatant racism. Acknowledging this isn’t a matter of party politics, it’s about basic decency.
“This comes after the recent ITV investigation revealed the extreme racism and misogyny in Reform’s ranks. Nigel Farage had the chance to act on this grim culture – instead he defended the comments, showing just how unfit for office he and his Party are.”
Labour’s official press account also posted a clip of the interview with the caption: “Rattled. And frankly desperate.”
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