Newspaper headlines: 'Sacked Jenrick defects' and 'Traitories'

Robert Jenrick joining Reform UK is the focus of almost all of the front pages.

The Daily Mail says with Jenrick’s announcement he “threw a hand grenade into the politics of the British right”, while the i Paper describes it as a “day of poison and betrayal”.

The Sun draws parallels between Jenrick’s defection and a certain television programme; its headline is “Trai-Tories”.

Many of the papers look at how the Conservative party leader, Kemi Badenoch, came to know about Robert Jenrick’s plans. Tory sources are quoted in The Times as saying that her team had been “monitoring” him for months. The Guardian reports that senior figures within her office were sent screenshots of his resignation speech on Monday.

There’s also plenty of praise for the way she responded. The Daily Express says she appeared “defiant” after sacking Jenrick. Camilla Tominey writes in The Daily Telegraph that Kemi Badenoch “showed her mettle”.

The Guardian focuses on Jenrick’s attack on the Conservative party in which he called it “rotten” and “failed”. The paper also quotes a senior Reform source saying that after a series of Tory defections, Robert Jenrick was the one they’d all wanted believing he’d bring experience to the party.

The Daily Mirror claims his move will “do nothing to help Reform’s reputation as an old Tories’ home”.

The Daily Mail says the chief constable of West Midlands Police, Craig Guildford, is expected to resign today after Downing Street called for him to stand down.

The Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, said on Wednesday that she’d lost confidence in him after his force used a misleading report, partly created by AI, to justify banning fans of the Israeli football team, Maccabi Tel Aviv, from a match in Birmingham. The paper says his position has become increasingly “untenable”.

And The Daily Telegraph has picked up on reports that the EU’s chief diplomat, Kaja Kallas, has joked that given the state of the world, now might be a “good moment” to start drinking.

She’s said to have told leaders of the European parliament that she’s not much of a drinker but given the “turbulent state of world affairs, that could change”.