Robert Jenrick seems to be coming through the middle in the Tory leadership contest, thanks to the implosion of Kemi Badenoch and the political nothingness of Tom Tugendhat and James Cleverly.
For nearly a year now, since his resignation as Rishi Sunak’s immigration minister, Jenrick has trumpeted a pure Nigel Farage-style immigration policy. That is, he says immigration is an “existential issue” for the party, and blames the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) for the failure to get asylum applications and the small boats from France under control when he was in office.
Surprisingly, he is the only one of the four candidates to bang on incessantly about the ECHR as the next “leave or remain” issue on Europe. Politically, the Tories were always bound to go in this direction when in opposition—partly because Farage is there, and partly because it is the only fig leaf available for the failure of Boris Johnson and Sunak to deal with the explosion in asylum cases after Brexit. He has even gilded the lily and blamed the ECHR for the failure to deport terrorists.
Asylum applications are in fact only a small part of the immigration picture. Most of the increase in immigration is taking place under schemes—notably international students and the extensive shortage occupations lists—put in place by Johnson after Brexit and have nothing to do with asylum and small boats. But Jenrick is happy to conflate the two, while also calling for a return of the Cameron cap of immigration at the “tens of thousands”, which was never close to being met even before Johnson turned the taps on.
It is a mystery why Badenoch didn’t jump on this ECHR and immigration bandwagon. Maybe she thought that her culture wars campaigns—the latest being her claim that not all cultures are “equally valid”—had greater Tory resonance. Anyway, she gifted the issue to Jenrick, while Tugendhat and Cleverly have yet to develop any themes whatever.
Worse, Badenoch blundered badly by opening up the issues of a “free at the point of use” NHS and welfare benefits, such as maternity pay, which apply to the middle class as much as the poor. Even right-wing Tory MPs know that there is no electoral appetite whatever for NHS charges—including among Tory members who tend to be older and on some NHS waiting list or other, while Keir Starmer’s controversial move to means-test the winter fuel allowance was a warning that there is no desire to tackle middle-class welfare either.
Tories are in the denial stage of Thatcherism, where lower taxes don’t need to be paid for. It is Truss-lite and will constantly undermine their credibility with the experts. But Jenrick understands that at the moment only the Tory membership matters. Whether he ever gets beyond denial is an open question.
So Jenrick it is likely to be.
The main gainer from Jenrick may be Farage, who will have a Tory leader talking about his issues incessantly. Maybe the two of them will end up teaming up. The trouble for Jenrick is that it isn’t hard to see who ends up as the senior partner.
