The former immigration minister promises to create a party that “Suella Braverman feels comfortable in.”
Robert Jenrick has entered the Conservative leadership race, advocating a series of hardline policies, including the reinstatement of the Rwanda policy. The former immigration minister pledged to establish a party that his “good friend Suella Braverman feels comfortable in” and to challenge Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.
Jenrick, the MP for Newark, launched his campaign from his own constituency, emphasising the party’s intent to engage with towns and rural areas beyond the “metropolitan bubble” of London.
Jenrick resigned as immigration minister in December 2023, criticising the government’s Rwanda legislation as insufficient, a move that increased pressure on Rishi Sunak. He joins James Cleverly, Priti Patel, Kemi Badenoch, Mel Stride, and Tom Tugendhat in the race to succeed Sunak.
At his campaign launch event, which was attended by prominent Tory right-wing figures including Esther McVey and Common Sense Group chairman John Hayes, Jenrick declared his intent to “absolutely” withdraw Britain from the ECHR. He further committed to reducing net migration to below 100,000 annually and expressed openness to a cap limiting migration to fewer than 10,000 people per year.
When asked about his proposed immigration cap, Jenrick stated: “I said that it would be in the tens of thousands. I’m open to it being less. But the key thing is that Parliament decides the cap and every Member of Parliament votes for it, so you can hold them to account. Do they believe in lower migration or not? And we can finally begin to restore public trust and confidence in our legal migration system.”
Jenrick also expressed his intention to revive the Rwanda scheme, but acknowledged this might take “four or five years.”
He criticised the spending and bureaucracy in the health service, stating: “We allowed the lions on the frontline of the NHS to be let down by the donkeys in the back offices.”
He noted that many Western countries face similar issues, but added: “The particular problems we face as a country stem from the fact that the British system is not working for the British people.
“I am not going to lie to you, for most of my time as a politician I believed our political system basically worked. I was elected 10 years ago in a by-election here in Newark, I was honoured to be a member of the government of each of the last five Conservative prime ministers. I prided myself on making the system work, on getting things done for my constituents and our country,” he said.
In response to Jenrick’s Conservative leadership campaign, Liberal Democrat Deputy Leader Daisy Cooper commented: “As a minister, Robert Jenrick oversaw a housing crisis and failed to address immigration, he has a terrible record tainted by failure.
“Only in today’s Conservative Party could someone with such a terrible record of failure think they could lead it.
“Jenrick is now a symbol of the way the Conservative Party has moved further and further away from lifelong Conservative voters in the Blue Wall. People right across the country are instead putting their faith in the Liberal Democrats to get a fair deal for them.”
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