Robert Jenrick in meltdown after ITV presenter asks if he has ‘defector’s remorse’

Reform UK MP Robert Jenrick had a meltdown during a live interview after being asked if he had defector’s remorse following his switch from the Tories to Reform earlier this year.

Jenrick, who was elected a Tory MP and who served in Kemi Badenoch’s shadow cabinet, joined Farage’s party in January when Reform were riding high in the polls.

However, Reform have been defined by scandal and have seen their position in the polls deteriorate, going from highs of around 30 points last year to dropping to the low 20s in third place, behind both Labour and the Tories.

In recent weeks Reform has also been engulfed in a racism scandal, after an undercover ITV documentary showed party members and councillors making racist and misogynistic comments. Farage is also awaiting the outcome of a standards committee probe into his failure to declare a £5million gift he had recieved from a crypto billionaire.

YouGov puts Reform in third place on 20% behind the Conservatives on 22% and Labour 27% in its most recent survey.

Appearing on ITV’s Good Morning Britain programme, Jenrick was asked by presenter Paul Brand: “I just wonder overall, Robert Jenrick, whether you’ve got defector’s remorse.

“You know you’re trailing in the polls now… 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.”

Jenrick hit back: “Paul, you’re a left-wing commentator and activist.”

Brand asked where the proof for such a claim was, but Jenrick interrupted: “You obviously don’t want Reform to succeed. Because you always just ask negative questions about Reform like that.”

Brand replied: “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 has also been criticised in recent weeks for refusing to condemn remarks from a Reform associate, Raheem Kassam, after he called Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch a “Nigerian scammer”.

Co-presenter Ranvir Singh once more asked Jenrick if he would condemn the comments.

Jenrick doubld down and 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.”