Kemi Badenoch’s approval rating has surpassed Nigel Farage for the first time in over a year after she dramatically sacked Robert Jenrick for planning to defect to Reform UK, according to a new poll.
The Conservative leader kicked her former shadow justice secretary out of her party as she accused him of plotting to leave “in a way designed to be as damaging as possible” to the Tories.
Hours later he joined Reform, taking a swipe at his former party as he was unveiled by Mr Farage as the latest Tory defector.
But a new More In Common poll, carried out from the day after Mr Jenrick was sacked until Monday, shows half of Britons support Ms Badenoch’s decisive action – with even 45 per cent of Reform voters saying she handled the defection well.
The survey found her net approval rating has risen to -11, the highest since December 2024, just a month after she first became leader.
It has also overtaken Mr Farage, who is on -13, for the first time since the same month.
The public is also three times more likely to say that Mr Jenrick’s sacking reflected well on Ms Badenoch than badly (34 to 11 per cent).
By contrast, just 14 per cent of those asked say the row reflected well on Mr Jenrick, while 37 per cent say it reflects poorly on him.
Pollsters also identified what they described as the potential ‘cost of defections’. More than half (56 per cent) said Tory politicians were defecting out of self-interest rather than principle, while a staggering seven in ten Conservative voters said they would not vote for their MP if they switched to Reform.
Earlier this month, polling guru Sir John Curtice wrote for the Independent about Ms Badenoch’s improving popularity following her well-regarded party conference speech and her response in the Budget.
“This is a key reason why the average level of support for Reform itself has slipped below the 30 per cent mark, for the first time since the party’s success in gaining control of 20 county councils last May,” he wrote.
However, despite the good news for Ms Badenoch, there was bad news for her party, with Reform UK winning the battle to be seen to represent the ‘Right’ of British politics, on 35 per cent ahead of the Tories on 29 per cent.
