Despite what he says now, in the months following that defeat to Kemi Badenoch, he was already open to defecting to Reform. In January last year, during a meeting with a prominent Conservative figure at the private members’ club 5 Hertford Street in London, Jenrick was asked whether he would ever quit the Tories. He responded by saying that he wanted to ensure that the right could win the next election. “He said to me that the most important thing is that we fix the country and for him that comes before politics and party,” the source recalls now. “I...