'This is not a split ...it's time for Right to unite'

VOTERS should unite behind Reform UK to fix “broken” Britain and defend Brexit, Nigel Farage has declared after Robert Jenrick’s landmark defection from the Conservatives.

- EXCLUSIVE BY DAVID WILLIAMSON

Robert Jenrick makes it official with Nigel Farage as he defects from the Conservatives to Reform

Mr Farage told the Sunday Express the decision by the former Shadow Justice Secretary to join Reform last week will be seen in the years ahead as a historic moment which marks not a split but the “coming together of the Right”.

The Reform leader set out the “fundamental” divide he sees: “Either you believe Britain is broken and needs radical change or you believe — as Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch do — that Britain isn’t broken.”

He claimed the key difference between Reform and the two main parties of power is: “They want to fiddle with the plumbing and we think it needs a brand new boiler.”

Mrs Badenoch insisted yesterday that “Britain is not broken” but is a “great country with deep reserves of strength, talent and resilience”.

But new Reform MP Mr Jenrick accused the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition of failing to recognise the true state of the nation.

He said: “Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch think that Britain isn’t broken. They’ve got their heads in the sand.

“They should get out more and see what's really happening. Brits are hard-up and have been for decades. NHS waiting lists remain obscenely high.