Reform recruit Andrea Jenkyns accused party donors of offering her £80k 'bribe' to ditch Tories earlier in the year
28 November 2024, 18:44
Reform UK's latest recruit Dame Andrea Jenkyns accused party donors of offering her a £80,000 “bribe” to ditch the Tories earlier in the year, LBC can reveal.
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Andrea Jenkyns, who announced she was joining Nigel Farage’s party this morning, told LBC on election night that she was offered a "bribe".
Although she previously said she had been offered a job with a prominent supporter of Arron Banks, this is the first time she used the word "bribe" or talked of a figure.
The disclosure happened in an LBC interview recorded on election night but not aired until today.
Dame Andrea contested the general election as a candidate for the Conservative Party but she finished second to Labour in the seat of Leeds South West and Morley.
The exchange took place after she was accused of bribing the Reform candidate during the general election campaign.
“They said, I tried to bribe him. God knows how I tried to bribe him," she said.
"It was actually one of their party donors who tried to bribe me with an 80 grand job.
“And as you'll also see in the public domain, they tried to do with Lee Anderson.”
Read more: Former Tory minister and MP Andrea Jenkyns defects to join Nigel Farage's Reform
Dame Andrea Jenkyns tells Andrew Marr about her claim that party donors offered her an £80k 'bribe'
Reform MP Lee Anderson, who used to be Conservative party chairman, previously made a similar claim.
In November 2023, he said he was offered a job for five years on a £80,000 salary if he defected to Reform.
Responding to the comments today, she said: "It was one of their donors – I don’t know if he’s a party member – who did offer me a job but I turned it down.
"That’s in the past. To me, there’s three people who are fully able to connect with people. One was Boris, Trump is doing that in America and the other person is Nigel. He connects to people."
Dame Andrea continued: "I do think that [Reform is] the answer while we’ve got a Conservative party which is not fully Conservative at the moment."
"At the end of the day, you fall out," she explained. "I’ve fallen out with my own party several times during the Brexit years…
"You have spats but I’m looking at the bigger picture of what’s right for Britain and what’s right for Britain actually is having a leader who wants to throw everything behind controlling legal migration, they want to make sure we catch the real criminals."
Dame Andrea, a former minister who served as a Tory MP from 2015 until this year, said that leaving the Conservative Party was “not an easy decision” and she had “fought to the bitter end” at the general election.
She said: “But the truth is undeniable: the ship is sinking and perhaps, sadly, beyond salvage but enough is enough. It is time to step aboard a movement with vision and purpose and the courage to fight for Britain’s future.”
Dame Andrea, who appeared alongside Farage in her election literature during the campaign, suggested that people should not vote for Reform because of “how they behave”.
“I'm a Conservative, I'm a Thatcherite Conservative. We must not go to the left," she said.
"There's certain people I do not want as party leader. And if we go to the left, then unfortunately, we see other parties trying to fill that void.
"But do you know something? I want to ensure that Reform does not fill that void. I've seen how they behave and I want to ensure they don't fill that void.”
She added: "I am a straight talking Yorkshire woman and I hate lies.”
Kemi Badenoch becoming party leader was 'the final factor' in her defection to Reform.
The Conservatives said: “This is the second time that a Conservative MP has said they were offered a bribe by Reform.
"In both instances those people subsequently switched their party allegiance.
"Ms Jenkyns claims to be a 'straight talking Yorkshire woman' ready and willing to serve the people of Lincolnshire who 'hates lies' so we wish her well with her new friends whom she clearly thinks so highly of."
Jenkyns told the Independent in July: "The reality is, under Mr Tice's leadership of Reform, prominent supporter Arron Banks tried to ply me with a job in his company if I defected to Reform. Naturally, I refused the outrageous offer.
"I have been subjected to numerous approaches from Reform since, including urging me to defect just days before the nomination papers were finalised.
"By its candidate’s own admission, Reform has clearly been running an underhand campaign to push MPs into defecting by any means they consider necessary."
Reform and Arron Banks have been contacted for comment.
