New shadow justice secretary apologises after Jenrick’s Reform defection<\/h2>\n<\/header>\n
Hello and welcome to the UK politics live blog with me, Tom Ambrose.<\/p>\n
This morning we start with follow-up and reaction to Robert Jenrick\u2019s<\/strong> dramatic sacking from the Tories<\/strong> and subsequent \u2013 if not depressingly unsurprising \u2013 defection to Nigel Farage\u2019s Reform UK<\/strong> party.<\/p>\n The shadow justice secretary was Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch\u2019s<\/strong> leadership rival and had been the bookies favourite to replace her after she failed to make any sort of impact on the polls.<\/p>\n Jenrick was sacked from the shadow cabinet and suspended from the Conservative party after Badenoch said she was presented with \u201cirrefutable evidence\u201d that he was planning to defect.<\/p>\n And so he did just hours later, wheeled out as Farage\u2019s latest recruit to Reform, in what is fast becoming the political equivalent of Trigger\u2019s broom, stacked with the former Tories they say broke Britain.<\/p>\n It comes as Nick Timothy<\/strong> said he was \u201csorry\u201d for how the Conservatives<\/a> \u201chandled certain things in those last few years\u201d in power.<\/p>\n The new shadow justice secretary told BBC Breakfast it was clear the country had been \u201clet down by some of the things that happened\u201d.<\/p>\n Asked whether he was sorry, Timothy said:<\/p>\n\n