Watch Camilla Tominey and Laila Cunningham descend into a fiery clash after the Reform councillor said she did not want Robert Jenrick in Reform just last week.
After Mr Jenrick was excavated from the Conservative Party over a “secret” plot to defect to Nigel Farage’s party on Thursday morning, he was unveiled as the populist party’s sixth MP just hours later.
Despite Reform appearing to delight in the surprise defection, Camilla quickly pulled Mrs Cunningham up on her previous criticism of the ex-Shadow Justice Secretary after she openly declared last week she did not want Mr Jenrick in Reform.
Mrs Cunningham, who also used to be a Conservative, placed blame on the former Immigration Minister for letting migrant hotels “flourish” on his watch.
Now, Camilla has grilled Reform’s London mayoral candidate over her apparent disdain for the ex-Shadow Justice Secretary’s portfolio of work.
Admitting she has cast doubt on Mr Jenrick in the past, the Reform heavyweight added: “The assessment of the Tories hasn’t changed. But what matters is when the Tories cling to that failure or whether Tories break away from it.
“And last week, he was defending a failed Tory Government. Now, he’s left it and he eviscerated it, acknowledging what he did.
“What really stuck with me was when he said that they are so complicit, they are so compromised that they no longer can speak for the British people.
‘Even when he’s sacked by Boris Johnson – he goes back for more,’ the GB News star slammed
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GB NEWS
“Reform’s a place for people who accept that the system failed. They were part of it and they want to make a difference.”
But Camilla was not yet appeased with Mrs Cunningham’s new opinion of Reform’s newest recruit, interjecting: “Hang on a minute. Hang on a minute, Laila.
“You can accept that the system has failed in the Conservative Party. The point is that Robert Jenrick served under five Tory Governments.
“Even when he’s sacked by Boris Johnson, he goes back for more. And now he’s saying that the problems that his Governments that he served in are somebody else’s fault.
ROBERT JENRICK JOINS REFORM – READ MORE:
Robert Jenrick joined Reform UK on Thursday
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PA
“Why did he go back and serve under Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, if the Conservatives were doing so badly?
“I make this point because the public, the GB News audience can see this chicanery, right? They look at it and they go ‘hang on a minute. This guy’s rewriting history.’
“Why can’t Nigel Farage see that?”
But Sir Sadiq Khan’s rival simply respsonded that she trusts Mr Farage’s judgement, adding Mr Jenrick’s departure signals the damning fate of the Conservatives.
He said: “Frankly, as you say, their record was horrific.
“What matters by him leaving is that it strengthens our project, which has led by Nigel Farage, and it helps deliver a Reform movement, and that is unequivocally in the national interest of the country.
“It’s not about me. It’s not about whether I’m pleased or displeased. It’s about what it represents.
“And it represents the final acknowledgement that the Conservative Party, not only do they no longer speak for the country, they can no longer speak for the country because they are so complicit.”
But Camilla dug in deeper, comparing the act of welcoming ex-Tories into Reform to “fix broken Britain” to “getting the arsonists to put out the fire”.
“There’s a contradiction at the heart of this premise,” she set out. “On one hand, you’ve got Nigel Farage and reformers like you saying the Tories failed in government, they failed to govern.”
She continued: “And then in the next breath, you’re saying we’re going to take on the Tories that failed to govern and failed in Government, to help us to govern because we don’t know how to govern?
“That doesn’t make any sense. It doesn’t make any sense to take Tories who are complicit in broken Britain and then expect them to change and fix it for Reform.”
But Mrs Cunningham railed against the view, responding: “Well, I wouldn’t say that’s right. It takes courage.
“It really does take courage to leave the Conservative Party and give the speech that he did. He didn’t hedge. He didn’t sugarcoat anything.
“He stood up and he eviscerated them. He said the truth about a party that’s failed the country so abysmally.”
