Robert Jenrick was left grim-faced in the House of Commons after a Lib Dem MP interrupted his attack on Labour’s record to point out that Jenrick had recently been in a different party entirely – and that the Conservative benches he was now criticising were precisely the ones he had just left.
The exchange came during a Commons debate on backing business to create economic growth. Jenrick, who defected from the Conservatives to Reform UK in January, had risen to attack the government’s record.
“Well, what a complete shambles,” he said. “Less than two years ago, this government were elected with the largest majority of any government, bar one, in 100 years. People across our country, including most in my home county of Nottinghamshire, put their trust in the Labour Party. Why? Because it promised change. It said it would do things differently, it would be better and it would end the chaos. It would put country before party. And where are we, less than two years later?”
At this point, Max Wilkinson, the Lib Dem MP who was sitting in front of Jenrick, chipped in: “You’re in a different party.”
The chamber laughed. Jenrick attempted to continue. Wilkinson had not finished.
Pointing to the Conservative benches, he added: “You used to be over there.”
Jenrick’s response – and what it reveals
A less self-aware politician might have been temporarily silenced. Jenrick, to his credit, did not flinch – though the grim-faced expression reportedly said more than his words.
He said: “The honourable member asks why I changed party. I will tell him why I changed party. It is because millions of people across the country look upon the performance of the last government, and this one, and say that these are wasted years and that our country needs real change, yet we see nothing for it.”
The response is a reasonable political answer to a legitimate question. The laughter it failed to prevent is the problem. Jenrick’s argument – that he defected because both Labour and the Conservatives have failed – is the intellectual framework of Reform’s pitch to the country. The difficulty is that making that argument from the Reform benches, having been a senior Cabinet minister in the government whose failures he is now describing, invites exactly the response Wilkinson provided.
You can watch it in full below:
Why the moment resonated
Jenrick was not just any Conservative MP. He was Housing Secretary under Boris Johnson. He was the minister who, as we reported in our Question Time piece on the Westferry housing scandal, admitted his own planning decision was “unlawful by reason of apparent bias” after rushing through a £1 billion development the day before new levies would have required the developer to pay up to £50 million to one of London’s poorest boroughs. He was the minister who spent the 2024 Conservative leadership contest positioning himself as the hardest possible candidate on immigration – then defected to a party whose central pitch is that the Conservative government he served in failed on exactly that issue.
He is now, from the Reform benches, attacking a Labour government for failing to deliver the change it promised. The Lib Dem’s interruption distilled the entire sequence into two sentences.
The “you used to be over there” heckle also carries a specific resonance given the current political moment. As we reported in our full coverage of the Labour leadership crisis, the political landscape is being defined by people moving parties, changing positions and reconfiguring alliances at a pace that makes “you used to be over there” applicable to an increasing proportion of the House of Commons.
The Reform Commons presence
Jenrick is one of a small number of Reform MPs – the party won one seat at the 2024 general election, but has since attracted defectors from the Conservatives and now has a small Commons presence. As we reported in our Danny Kruger Question Time piece, Reform’s Westminster operation has struggled in some of its first major Commons appearances – Kruger was laughed at for not knowing the numbers behind his own welfare policy, and Jenrick has now been openly mocked for the defection that made him a Reform MP in the first place.
The party’s strength is not in the Commons – it is in the 1,440 council seats it won in last week’s local elections, as we reported in our full election results coverage, and in the 27% national polling that makes it the most likely single party to win the most seats at the next general election. Parliamentary scrutiny – the kind that produces “you used to be over there” moments – is not where Reform’s political strength lies.
Whether that changes as the party’s Commons presence grows and its local government record becomes more visible will be one of the most important political questions of the next three years.
