Robert Jenrick He is a man in a hurry. from the conservative The leadership contest began in July, and he has traveled across the country to attend more than 150 events with party members.
“There have been no days off”; in fact, his three young daughters even had to accompany him to an election campaign in the West Country during the summer to spend a little time with him.
“They enjoyed it,” he says. ‘They received all the merchandise from the other campaigns: the Mel Stride cookies and Tom Tugendhat M&Ms. When they returned to the Premier Inn, their tongues were all blue.
Some Conservative MPs believe he began running for the leadership long before July. Colleagues of the then Immigration Minister noted that he had undergone a “power makeover” last fall, with a stylish haircut, sharp suits and a dramatic appearance. weight loss, aided for a time by the wonder drug Ozempic.
When he resigned in December last year in protest of Rishi SunakThe refusal to tighten the legislation behind the Rwanda deportation plan, had thrown four stones.
Conservative leadership contender Robert Jenrick has vowed to expel up to a million people in a pledge to expel “everyone” living in the UK illegally.
He insists that a year ago he was not contemplating a change in leadership, despite fine-tuning his appearance.
Colleagues also noted that the former Remainer had also shed some of his centrist views and was courting the conservative right with a hardline message on immigration.
When we meet in his office just yards from the House of Commons, he insists he was not contemplating a change in leadership at the time.
Ozempic no longer exists. “It worked, but it didn’t suit me,” he says. But the weight has been maintained thanks to exercise and “eating less.”
And his views on immigration, if anything, have become tougher. He has put abandonment of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) at the center of his campaign, and it is a key point of difference with his remaining rival. Kemi Badenochwho wants to reform it, something that, according to him, is a “fantasy.”
If he wins until next month and reaches number 10 in four years, the Rwanda scheme will return. And he makes a stunning new promise to expel “everyone” living in the UK illegally, a plan that could see a future Conservative government try to expel up to a million people.
As for legal immigration, he promises a new annual “cap” to limit the number to “tens of thousands.”
British companies will have to find British workers to pick potatoes, clean offices and work in care homes and, if necessary, pay them “one pound or more per hour” to do so.
Mr Jenrick is painfully aware that the “tens of thousands” figure was first promised by David Cameron in 2010, and that the Conservatives never came close to achieving it during 14 years in government, a failure which he believes boosted support for Reform UK.
Her remaining rival is former Women and Equalities Minister Kemi Badenoch.
Jenrick delivers a speech at Policy Exchange in Westminster on Thursday
The story of the tape before the Conservative leadership elections: decided by party members at the end of the month
“I share the anger and frustration of the British public at the fact that this issue has not been taken seriously by politicians of all political stripes for most of my adult life,” he says.
“And I am particularly frustrated because after we regained control of the mechanisms of legal migration, by leaving the European Union and ending freedom of movement, the ministers at that time made decisions that created an even more liberal immigration system and open than the previous one. we had.’
Yes, that’s a swipe at Priti Patel and Boris Johnsonwhose post-Brexit visa system, coupled with unexpected crises in Ukraine and Hong Kong, saw net immigration soar to a staggering 764,000 in 2022.
He also volunteers to investigate Liz Truss, describing her mini-Budget as “sloppy, clumsy and unconservative”.
Jenrick bristles at complaints that his relentless focus on immigration has made him look like a “one-club golfer” and lists a series of policies on the economy, the NHS and defence.
“On each of those issues, I have presented serious political solutions,” he says. ‘I don’t speak in platitudes. I have presented serious answers.
Regarding the NHS, for example, he says it is “time to stop treating it as a religion that should be worshiped, but as a public service that needs reform.”
It is “a shame”, he says, that 90 per cent of NHS trusts failed to remove a single manager for poor performance last year. “It’s incredible to name a company in this country that works that way,” he says.
On defense, he says he is willing to eliminate spending on foreign aid to increase military budgets to three percent of GDP.
But the conversation always returns to immigration, where he believes the race is an opportunity to get a “mandate” from party members to take tough action, including leaving the ECtHR, which some moderate conservatives vehemently oppose.
Critics within the party have questioned the sincerity of his conversion from a moderate Remain supporter to a right-wing immigration hammer.
He acknowledges that his time in office “influenced my politics, because I saw that the British state was simply not doing its most basic duty, which is to secure our borders, to keep people safe, and I came to the conclusion that it was not prepared for “I would be just another minister or politician who would turn a blind eye to those problems.”
But he insists that in other respects “my values have always been the same.”
Those who doubt his sincerity might note that Jenrick and his wife, prominent corporate lawyer Michal Berkner, gave one of their daughters Thatcher’s middle name long before he contemplated running for the leadership, a fact that now appears a little embarrassed.
‘It was his middle name. “She will become a socialist and will resent this for the rest of her life,” he jokes.
Jenrick with his wife Michal Berkner, a senior corporate lawyer
Jenrick’s supporters include heavyweight Brexiteers Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg (left) and Sir Bill Cash (right).
More seriously, he points out that he is backed by a number of heavyweight Brexiteers, including Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg and Sir Bill Cash.
Jenrick has clearly hinted that her remaining opponent is something of a “drama” queen, with a habit of being dragged into “Twitter spats” that risk taking the party down “rabbit holes”.
He stops short of attributing any of this directly to Ms Badenoch, but says the choice facing Conservative members is between a “serious” approach and “unnecessary drama”.
Will he win? In this unpredictable contest, no one can tell. But if you decide through effort and sheer will to win, then you will have every chance.
“When the elections were called, it had a ratio of 66 to one; Today the race is very even,” he says.
‘Yes, it could go either way. But people have been attracted to our campaign because we have a proper diagnosis of what went wrong and we have really interesting and compelling political arguments about how to move the country and the party forward. “I think the momentum is with me.”
