Category Archives: Robert Jenrick

Ex-defence secretary Grant Shapps says he has seen ‘no evidence’ for Jenrick’s claim about SAS killing terrorists – UK politics live

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Senior Tories condemn leadership hopeful’s claim UK special forces are killing terrorists over fears that European laws would free detained assailants

Popular Conservatism, or PopCon, has released the results of a survey of party members suggesting more than half of them favour a merger with Reform UK. Some 30% of the respondents said they tended to support the idea, and 23% were strongly in favour. The survey covered 470 members.

Annunziata Rees-Mogg, PopCon’s head of communications and a former Brexit party MEP, said:

Every Conservative activist and canvasser knows people who had been Tories, but voted Reform UK in July. It is no surprise our panellists understand that the next leader of the party needs to take action to bring many like-minded voters back to the Tories. Almost three-quarters want a relationship with Reform in order to unite the right.

The answer I was often given by people in government at the time was that lockdowns were very popular.

They were getting 60, 70, 80% popularity ratings in the opinion polls. But you mustn’t believe those opinion polls, they’re basically nonsense.

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Jenrick condemned for claim UK special forces ‘kill rather than capture terrorists’

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Tory leadership candidate made claim in video calling for UK to leave European convention on human rights

Robert Jenrick is facing condemnation for claiming that UK special forces are “killing rather than capturing” terrorists because of fears that European laws would free any detained assailants.

In a campaign video launched on X, the Conservative leadership candidate made the statement while listing reasons for leaving the European convention on human rights.

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Reeves’ economy inheritance claim one of Labour’s ‘biggest lies’, Hunt tells Tory conference – UK politics live

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The shadow chancellor said he ‘would have died’ to have had the legacy Rachel Reeves had when he took over

Robert Jenrick has used a campaign rally just outside the Conservative conference to paint the issue of migration in highly stark terms, saying his party will “die” if it does not commit to quitting the European convention on human rights. (See 8.23am.)

Speaking to supporters in a studio theatre at Birmingham Rep, Jenrick repeated his styling of the issue in Brexit terms, saying the choice was between the “leave” of leaving the ECHR or “remain” of staying in it, and that this was a chance to “get migration done”.

This is more than just, ‘leave or amend’ – frankly, our party doesn’t have a future unless we take a stand and fix this problem. It’s leave or die for our party – I’m for leave.

Foreign national offenders in our country,who we have struggled to deport because of our membership of the European Convention on Human Rights – that’s the issue I was raising.

What is the biggest challenge we face as a party?

Our biggest strategic challenge is the fact that the average age above which you are more likely to vote Conservative than Labour is now over 60.

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Moderation out and madness to the fore in the Tories’ Birmingham echo chamber | John Crace

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With the leadership contenders vying to out-crazy each other, it was Boris – well it would be, wouldn’t it – who outdid them all

See it from the point of view of the Fearless Four. You’ve already seen off the mighty challenge of Priti Patel and Mel Stride, latter-day Tory titans both, so now you’re through to the Birmingham eliminator.

You’ve disappeared through the wormhole into the mephitic swamp where any intelligent life comes to die. Where only the clinically deranged and terminally deluded are to be found. Where the sanest voice is Michael Fabricant’s rug pleading with its owner to be allowed to go home. Welcome to the Tory party conference.

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Kemi Badenoch faces backlash after comments on ‘excessive’ maternity pay – as it happened

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Conservative leadership contenders Jenrick, Cleverly and Tugendhat reject rival’s comments, while Rosie Duffield criticises Keir Starmer

Q: Do you agree with Kemi Badenoch that some cultures are less valid than others?

Jenrick says culture matters. But he says he disagres with Badenoch on immigration numbers. He says he thinks you have to have a cap on numbers. And he also says he believes the UK has to leave the European convention on human rights. He says Badenoch is just talking about developing a plan in a few years time, and that’s “a recipe for infighting and for losing the public’s trust”.

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‘Like celebrity reality TV where you don’t recognise the celebrities’: senior Tories fear next leader won’t survive long

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Conservative grandees at the conference in Birmingham fear that none of the candidates can unite the party’s factions

Senior Tories are already predicting that whoever wins the Conservative leadership race is unlikely to survive until the next election, amid criticisms of a “B-list” contest that risks taking the party farther to the right.

Some veteran figures have decided to give this weekend’s conference in Birmingham a miss, fearing the party has learned little from the complete loss of discipline that characterised its final years in government.

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Tories were too focused on Reform to see Lib Dem threat, Theresa May says

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Former PM says leadership candidates must understand that party lost election because it ‘trashed our brand’

The Conservatives “failed to see the threat from the Liberal Democrats” while focusing too much on the rise of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, Theresa May has said.

Writing in the Times on the eve of the party’s annual conference in Birmingham, Lady May said the remaining candidates for the Tory leadership could “play into Reform’s hands” by failing to understand the reasons behind their electoral humiliation.

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Priti Patel knocked out of Tory leadership race with Robert Jenrick securing most votes in first round – UK politics live

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Former home secretary finishes behind Mel Stride after only securing 14 votes

PMQs is starting soon. Here is the list of MPs down to ask a question.

Kemi Badenoch is the clear favourite of Conservative members for next leader, and will be very hard to beat if she makes it into the final ballot of two, according to a survey by ConservativeHome.

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Priti Patel knocked out of Tory leadership contest in first round

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Former home secretary got two fewer votes than Mel Stride, while Robert Jenrick leads race to succeed Rishi Sunak

Priti Patel has been knocked out of the race to succeed Rishi Sunak as Conservative party leader in the first round of voting by Tory MPs.

The former home secretary received 14 votes from her colleagues, leaving her two behind the fifth-placed candidate, Mel Stride.

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Robert Jenrick inquired into revoking Palestinian student’s visa, emails reveal

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Court documents show then immigration minister wrote to Home Office after Dana Abu Qamar spoke at university demonstration

The former immigration minister and Conservative leadership hopeful Robert Jenrick inquired into revoking a Palestinian student’s visa, court documents have revealed.

Dana Abu Qamar, 20, a law student who led the Friends of Palestine society at the University of Manchester, was stripped of her visa in 2023 after speaking at a university demonstration on Gaza’s historical resistance to Israel’s “oppressive regime” and a subsequent interview with Sky News.

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Kemi Badenoch to urge Conservatives to do more than criticise Labour

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Shadow minister will launch leadership campaign with call to think afresh and move on from landslide election defeat

Kemi Badenoch will say the Conservatives must do more than criticise Labour in order to win the next general election, as she launches her campaign to lead the party.

Potential dividing lines with her leadership rivals already appear to be forming, after Robert Jenrick said on Sunday he would oppose Labour’s “declaration of war on the middle classes”.

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‘The race is wide open’: MPs’ vote looms for six Tory leadership hopefuls

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Badenoch and Jenrick are the bookies’ favourites but the party’s reduced ranks make the numbers extremely tight

When the Conservative MPs who remain return to Westminster, they will briefly seem like some of the most popular people in SW1. With the party so reduced in numbers, over the next few days there will be a furious wooing of those who have not yet declared for one of the six leadership candidates.

“The race is wide open,” one senior Tory said. “There are barely any public endorsements so no one can tell who is the favourite. The public polling has been all over the place. Often they seem to be just based on who has paid for it.”

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Who are the six leadership candidates to be voted on by Conservative MPs?

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Tory MPs will vote next week in a series of ballots to narrow the field down to four candidates

Conservative MPs will start whittling down the leadership candidates to four next week, the first stage in a long contest from which a winner will not emerge until 2 November. Here are the six candidates in the running to replace Rishi Sunak.

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Top Tories fuelled riots with ‘divisive language’ on immigration, say party grandees

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Veteran Conservatives on the party’s liberal wing have criticised the rightwards shift by some senior figures

• Tim Kirkhope: The Conservative party has shifted too far to the right. We must fight for the centre ground

Tory grandees have accused senior figures in their own party of using divisive language that inflamed anger over immigration before the recent rioting, amid warnings that too many Conservatives have “turned a blind eye” to a shift to the right.

The criticisms come as fears grow on the party’s liberal wing that the leadership election risks pulling the party further into populist polices designed to take on Reform UK.

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Robert Jenrick criticised for saying people shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ should be arrested

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Critics call Tory leadership candidate’s comments around far-right protests ‘nasty divisive rhetoric’

Robert Jenrick has been criticised by a rival for the Conservative leadership and Muslim parliamentarians for saying police should “immediately arrest” any protesters shouting “Allahu Akbar”, the Arabic phrase that means God is great.

The former immigration minister was speaking on Sky News about the accusations that police have been treating far-right marches and violence more harshly than other protests.

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Robert Jenrick focuses Tory leadership bid on promises to cut immigration

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Former Home Office minister says he is open to capping immigration and wants to reimpose Rwanda scheme

Robert Jenrick has said he would hope to detain and deport people who arrive in the UK on small boats “within days” if he wins the Conservative leadership race and the next general election.

The former immigration minister said he was “open” to a cap restricting immigration to fewer than 10,000 people a year and shared his hopes of reimposing the Rwanda scheme.

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Robert Jenrick enters race to become next Tory leader

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Former minister becomes third MP to formally join race after James Cleverly and Tom Tugendhat threw hats into the ring

Robert Jenrick, the former immigration minister who quit Rishi Sunak’s cabinet over the prime minister’s failure to take a tougher approach to immigration, has entered the race to become Conservative leader.

The Tory MP’s campaign manager, Danny Kruger, said he was best placed to win back voters who deserted the party for Reform at the general election. He is the third MP, after James Cleverly and Tom Tugendhat, to join the contest.

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Tees Valley mayor Ben Houchen warns against protracted Tory leadership race

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Houchen says party must avoid seeming self-indulgent as other Conservatives attack Liz Truss over new intervention

The Conservatives should not have a protracted leadership debate as it would be a “waste of time” and could risk appearing self-indulgent, the Tees Valley mayor Ben Houchen has said.

His comments came as former Conservative parliamentary candidates rounded on the former prime minister Liz Truss, who has attacked the leadership of Rishi Sunak in the failed general election campaign by saying he had trashed her legacy in office.

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Keir Starmer says Palestinian state is an ‘undeniable right’ as part of Gaza peace process – UK politics live

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Labour’s election manifesto committed party to recognising Palestinian state as part of a process that results in a two-state solution with Israel

Reynolds says he is not supposed to pre-empt what will be in the king’s speech, but he says it is no secret that the government is going to prioritise its employment rights reforms.

Jonathan Reynolds is being interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg now.

I do want things in exchange for money we’ll co-invest with the private sector around jobs and technology.

I think that’s a reasonable way to make sure public money is being well spent and I believe there are things, capacities, the steel industry needs in future that could be part of that conversation and that’s what I’ll be having in the next few days …

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Rightwing Tories plan ‘rebel manifesto’ if Sunak’s policy launch falls flat

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Party figures including Braverman and Jenrick waiting to see how public responds to pledges, insiders say

Conservative rightwingers are planning to present Rishi Sunak with demands for tougher action on immigration and human rights law before the election if the prime minister’s manifesto promises on Tuesday fall flat.

Prominent party figures including Suella Braverman and Robert Jenrick are said by Tory insiders to be among those waiting to see how the manifesto is received by the public before they act.

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