Robert Jenrick

Robert Jenrick is Reform UK's Treasury spokesman and the MP for Newark. At the party's Birmingham conference in September 2026 he pledged to cut public spending by £80bn a year by the end of the next Parliament, and wrote to large gilt holders inviting them to roadshows in London and New York. The Spectator judged that the sums still do not fully add up, since the cut and a claimed £30bn interest saving both depend on investors first lowering British yields.

Jenrick sat as a Conservative from his 2014 by-election win until 15 January 2026, when Kemi Badenoch sacked him as Shadow Justice Secretary and removed the whip over a planned defection; he joined Reform the same day. He served as Housing Secretary from 2019 to 2021 and Immigration Minister from 2022 to 2023, and came second to Badenoch in the 2024 Conservative leadership contest. On 9 February 2026 he told the Commons that advice from his time as Housing Secretary had judged a second postponement of local elections unlawful. Nigel Farage gave him Reform's economic brief on 17 February, and as finance chief he canvassed in the April 2026 Cliftonville by-election in Kent.

His pitch to bond investors tests whether a party outside government can persuade markets that deep spending cuts would lower Britain's borrowing costs.