The Conservative Party may not be at its “lowest ebb”, former immigration minister Robert Jenrick has warned.
Jenrick, widely tipped as a likely contender in the forthcoming Conservative leadership contest, said his party’s problems “undoubtedly could get worse”, as he urged colleagues to “repent” for the mistakes made in government.
Asked how the party could avoid being consigned to history, the former cabinet minister told the BBC’s Political Thinking with Nick Robinson podcast: “I think that’s a possibility. I don’t think that we should assume that the result that we’ve just suffered is our lowest ebb.”
He added: “If we fail to act now, with seriousness, and change the Conservative Party, then things undoubtedly could get worse.
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“That’s why I think that we have to respond to this challenge by repenting for some of the mistakes we’ve made, such as on immigration, but not just on immigration.”
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The general election earlier this month saw the Conservatives suffer a landslide loss, with Rishi Sunak’s party reduced to 121 MPs, down 251.
The Conservative vote also dropped from 13.9 million at the last election in 2019 to just 6.8 million.
Speaking on the morning after the election result, Sunak confirmed that he will resign as Conservative leader — but only when arrangements are in place to choose his successor.
Robert Jenrick, considered an ally of Sunak’s before resigning from his government in 2023, is one of the Conservative MPs tipped to succeed the ex-PM as leader.
In a ConservativeHome leadership survey of 995 party members last week, Jenrick came second at 13 per cent, ahead of shadow security minister Tom Tugendhat, ahead of Suella Braverman (10 per cent) and shadow home secretary James Cleverly (9 per cent).
Kemi Badenoch, the shadow housing secretary, polled first at 26 per cent.
Jenrick delivered his first speech of the 59th parliament following the King’s Speech on Wednesday.
Reflecting on his time in Whitehall, Jenrick told the House of Commons: “I have been honest, painfully honest, about the failings of the last government on this topic – but I worry that the same or worse mistakes are about to be made again.
“What we’re seeing in the Channel is a national security emergency. We’re seeing tens of thousands of people about whom we know next to nothing crossing into our country, breaking into our country in flagrant abuse of our laws. Some of them are subjects of interest being followed by our security services.
“This has got to stop and scrapping the only known credible deterrent with nothing else to put in its place is going to surrender to the people-smuggling gangs. That’s wrong, it’s a mistake, and I worry that we are going to rue the day that we did that.”
Jenrick added: “If we centrist parties on the left and the right do nothing about this – if we do nothing about this – then you will see the rise of far-right parties in this country, and I think that would be a great mistake.”
The MP for Newark, who saw his majority reduced to 3,572 votes at the last election, went on to criticise Labour’s net zero policies, among them a “2030 clean power mission”, accusing ministers of pursuing them for “ideological reasons”.
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