Has she spoken on why she left in the first place. That whole fiasco never sat right with me.
pretty sure it was mutual in the sense that she was unhappy with her role on the show, so she decided to move onto other things, but clearly it wasn't that bad if she's been back on to promote her stuff multiple times.
I don't think there was some secret behind the scenes blow up that led to Sam firing her or her quitting or anything that drastic. I guess you could argue that Sam may have made it an environment that wasn't the best for her. her role got significantly reduced once they were out of the studio during covid and she obviously had been having some contentious on air arguments/disagreements with Sam at the time. I believe she has said that she was the last one to know they were hiring Emma, so she probably felt like she was less part of the team.
but also she might have just been a bad fit for that type of show. she seems like a nice person and all, but sometimes she didn't seem prepared. she would make statements, some of which I agreed with, but then do a poor job backing them up when Sam would press her on them. some of it I'm sure is because it's tough to go up against someone as good at arguing as Sam is, but also some of it seemed like she either didn't think things all the way through before making statements or she just didn't have anything to back up what she was saying (which imo came off as unprepared or lazy) and then she'd get clowned on by Sam, which has to be embarrassing and not feel that great. it probably didn't make her like her job as much anymore, that's for sure.
but she was also clearly disinterested in electoral politics for the most part, which is a huge part of the show. so if you're going to come off like you don't care/you're clueless on certain issues, it doesn't surprise me that your role on the show would be reduced. I can't really blame Sam for that, as that has always been a huge part of the show.
I do wish there was someone else further to the left than Sam and Emma though, I just think there has to be someone else out there who would be better at expressing it on a show than Jamie was because when she'd look bad sometimes it would also make some of her actual good points look bad because she wasn't the best at arguing them.