Sir Jake Berry has quit Kemi Badenoch's Conservatives for Nigel Farage's Reform UK (Image: Phil Harris / Lucy North / Matthew Horwood)
Sir Jake Berry – the former Conservative chairman who is now working to make Nigel Farage the next prime minister – says Tory leader Kemi Badenoch would struggle to sleep if she knew how many MPs in her party have been in touch with him.
Communities across Britain are fracturing and the country will change beyond recognition without “radical change”, the father of three warns. His switch to Reform UK was a coup for Mr Farage and his ferociously ambitious team. Sir Jake had been a key ally of Boris Johnson and a champion of levelling-up who served as Minister for the Northern Powerhouse.
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Having spent years in the engine room of successive Conservative administrations, he now argues Mr Farage has “what it takes” to tackle the North-South divide. He says that after losing the Lancashire constituency he had held since 2010 in last summer’s election he found himself “really scared and worried” about the country in which his children are growing up. He identifies crime, a loss of control of Britain’s borders and high taxation as three key concerns.
“We have a society in decline,” he says. “But what I decided is decline isn’t the same thing as destiny.”
Sir Jake ruled out leaving the UK.
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“I had a choice,” he says. “I could, like lots of my friends, leave the country but I love Britain. I love living here. I love my country. So the choice I’ve made is [to support] Reform, by helping Nigel Farage with the hope he will become our next prime minister. I have decided to stay and fight for Britain.”
He had given up any hope of influencing the Tories from outside parliament after, as he puts it, spending nearly “one and a half decades” of his life trying to point the party in a new direction.
“They wouldn’t listen when I was in Parliament,” he says. “They definitely are never going to listen when I’m outside Parliament.”
Former Conservative comrades reacted to his defection with “a bit of anger”, “a little bit of sorrow” and – above all, he says – curiosity.
“I think Kemi Badenoch would be losing a lot of sleep if she knew how many sitting Conservative MPs have been in touch with me and have been Reform-curious,” he claims.
Sir Jake is quick to state that Reform is not looking for a “wave” of Tory MPs to defect to its ranks, and it does not want to be “the Conservative Party 2.0”.
“It’s not a home for ex-Tories,” he says. “It’s a home for people who believe in Britain.”
But could he see former PM Boris Johnson – who recommended him for his knighthood – joining him in Reform, which is in first place in the polls?
He bats the question away: “No one ever knows with Boris what he’s going to do next.”
Sir Jake credits his old boss with tapping into a hunger for optimism about the future of the country. And he has a ready analysis of what went wrong with his mission to end brutal inequalities across the country.
“As good as levelling-up was, one of the challenges we had with it was it wasn’t particularly about creating jobs. It was about spending money.”
Once the Treasury got a hold on the policy, he argues, it “got completely bastardised” and became about putting up “plant pots all over the country”.
Voters are not looking for more floral pots or park benches, he insists. Instead, “they want jobs”.
He draws a stark lesson from the Boris years.
“Winning isn’t enough. You have to have the determination to come in and really change things and I don’t think you can get that with any of the legacy, traditional parties.
“You have to have someone whose got what it takes.”
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Sir Jake Berry was the Minister for the Northern Powerhouse (Image: Phil Harris)
As the father of a son with autism, he has first-hand experience of how Government policies shape the lives and futures of families.
“Raising a child with autism is really, really hard,” he says. “They give you so much joy and pleasure but it’s not an easy road.”
Describing the challenges of securing an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) which outlines a child’s needs, he says: “Going through that EHCP process for my son is probably the most complicated and hardest thing I’ve ever done – and I’ve served in the cabinet of the United Kingdom.”
He does not hide his frustration at the presence of equality, diversity and inclusion officers on council payrolls when parents are struggling to get help for sons and daughters.
“Whether you have a child with additional needs or not, I don’t think anyone would say what the country needs are a few more EDI officers working for local authorities.”
A different era: Esther McVey and Sir Jake Berry in 2020 (Image: PA)
'Everyone can get behind a party that believes in Britain'
Reform is now preparing the policies it will put into action if voters give it the chance at the next election. According to Sir Jake, the question which undergirds every policy decision is: “Will this serve everyone in the United Kingdom?”
“I can tell you, that’s a different way of doing politics,” he says. “It has none of the legacy of Cameron-ism, May-ism, Boris-ism, Sunak-ism or Blair-ism or Brown-ism or Starmer-ism.
“It’s a new way of doing policy. It spans the Left and Right of British politics.
“It doesn’t matter who you normally vote for... Everyone can get behind a party that believes in Britain.”
He accuses his former party of “preserving the status quo” – arguing this is not what voters need if they are struggling to find a job, are suffering in the cost of living crisis and live in an area blighted by crime.
And when it comes to the leader who will push through the radical reforms he wants, Sir Jake has put his faith in arguably Britain’s most famous Brexiteer.
“I really believe Nigel Farage will be that person,” he says.
You may not like him, he argues, but “everyone knows he means what he says”.
In contrast, he claims, the Conservative party is “addicted to regicide”. He turns his guns on a “breed of professional politician” who see politics as a “bit of a game”.
He says he believes Mr Farage can take power with a majority.
“I think we’re in a new era in politics,” he explains. “There has never been a new prime minister who has got things so spectacularly wrong, who has been so unpopular with the British people so quickly, and I also think the electorate is very volatile.”
Will Sir Jake stand for a seat in the Commons again? He is adamant he has not been promised anything by Reform.
“It’s very early days,” he says.
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But he is aged just 46 and has cabinet table experience and a passion for lifting up the Red Wall communities which could decide the result of the next election.
“With Labour,” he laments, “there just appears to be no recognition whatsoever of the North of England – that land of opportunity – and the potential which could be released for it.”
Sir Jake is not a man who like sitting on the sidelines and he is already back on the pitch.
Then-PM Boris Johnson with then-Northern Powerhouse minister Sir Jake Berry (Image: AFP/Getty Images)
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