Britain’s shadow justice secretary is sacked
British Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch has sacked the shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick with immediate effect.
Badenoch also removed the whip from Jenrick and suspended his party membership over suspicions that he was planning to leave the party, according to the England-and-Wales Law Society Gazette.
“I was presented with clear, irrefutable evidence that he was plotting in secret to defect in a way designed to be as damaging as possible to his shadow cabinet colleagues and the wider Conservative Party,” said Badenoch.
Backing for ECHR exit
Jenrick, a former solicitor, had been the shadow justice secretary for around 15 months, having been appointed by the woman who defeated him in the Conservative leadership election.
The Gazette said that he he had been an outspoken critic of the judicial-review process, which he said was “mummifying economic growth” and pledged that his party would leave the European Convention on Human Rights.
He also led an attack on the independence of some judges who, he said, “blur the line between adjudication and activism”.
The Gazette says that Jenrick appears likely to be defecting to the Reform Party, led by Nigel Farage. His replacement has yet to be announced.