In what insiders are calling “the fastest self-own in European politics,” the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom has unveiled a new strategy: pre-emptive internal sabotage. When senior Tory Robert Jenrick allegedly prepared to defect to a populist rival, the party’s leader beat him to the punch by expelling him first — a move described by political analysts as “unnecessary but oddly efficient.”
“Why wait for betrayal,” one anonymous MP quipped, “when you can fire them first and let everyone else figure out what happened later?” The strategy, now informally dubbed “Operation Stop Your Engines,” ensures that no member’s ambition is ever realized — especially their own.
Eyewitnesses report that Jenrick, only minutes before his dismissal, had been overheard pondering whether politics was really “just glorified musical chairs.” Party strategists later confirmed that they liked that analogy, but said it lacked sufficient malice.
“I was about to defect because modern politics demands excitement,” Jenrick reportedly said from a podium beside Nigel Farage moments before being sacked. “But now I’m sacked and defected, so I guess I’m double-borrowing from the chaos economy.”
Kemi Badenoch, the Tory leader with the aura of someone who would unfriend you in real life before you finished your sentence, issued a statement praising the move. “We saw evidence of disloyalty,” she declared, which in political English roughly translates to “he asked for a promotion and we panicked.”
Political pundits are struggling to assign blame, primarily because everyone involved has already blamed someone else. One senior commentator opined, “If Machiavelli were alive today, he’d ask for a sabbatical.”
Meanwhile, Reform UK celebrated the snafu as a “strategic acquisition” — because nothing says credibility like inheriting someone who was fired for defecting. The British public, for its part, has responded with that uniquely English mix of bemusement and stoicism — along with a collective shrug that now rivals global shoulder standards.
Political insiders predict the next phase of the Tory strategy will be firing the replacement for the person they haven’t hired yet, followed by cancelling the job posting altogether. Momentum, after all, is easier to fire than to maintain.
