Robert Jenrick tonight warned the Tories will ‘never be in government again’ unless they win back disaffected voters or those who switched to Reform UK in July.
The Conservative leadership hopeful used a TV debate to highlight immigration as the key issue behind the party’s devastating general election loss.
He said a failure to deliver on immigration pledges during 14 years in power explained ‘why our party is where it is right now’.
Appearing on GB News alongside his leadership rival Kemi Badenoch, the Newark MP added: ‘It’s the reason that we lost four million of our people to Reform at the general election and millions more who decided to stay at home.
‘You know who those people are, whose trust we lost, and we’ve got to get them back.
‘If we don’t get them back home to our party, we’ll never be in government again.’
Mr Jenrick repeated his call for Britain to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and to introduce an annual cap on legal immigration.
But the ex-minister dismissed a suggestion he is only trying to woo the Tory Right to win the party’s leadership, as he was challenged over his support for Remain during the EU referendum.
Asked if he could later tack to the political centre-ground if he is victorious over Ms Badenoch, he said: ‘Not at all. My values have never changed. My values are rooted in the place I grew up in Wolverhampton.
‘In the upbringing I had for my parents, their values of family, of small business, of self-reliance, of patriotism.
‘Those are values that drove me into politics and why I want to be leader of this party.
‘I’ve been very clear of what I want to do and it involves fundamentally changing this party so that we can win again.
‘And I believe passionately that you will never win, we won’t win as a party, unless we get back the Conservative family again, unite the right of British politics.
‘And that begins with migration.’
Robert Jenrick tonight warned the Tories will ‘never be in government again’ unless they win back disaffected voters or those who switched to Reform UK in July
Mr Jenrick faced his leadership rival Kemi Badenoch in a GB News debate hosted by the TV channel’s political editor Chris Hope
Tonight’s debate was seen as crucial as it is expected many party members will vote for their favoured leadership candidate during the first week of the ballot.
This is despite members having until the end of the month to cast their votes.
‘Everyone will have probably voted by tomorrow anyway,’ one ex-MP told Politico.
The GB News debate may have had Tory party officials watching through their fingers.
Televised hustings during the 2022 leadership contest between Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss turned nasty and were seen as a bad idea by many Tories.
But the two current hopefuls appear unlikely to take part in many other TV clashes.
A mooted appearance live on the BBC hangs in the balance after the broadcaster refused a Conservative demand to charge audience members a £10 entry fee, with party bosses arguing it would reduce the number of no-shows.
Ms Badenoch has said she is running a ‘grassroots campaign’ to be the next Tory leader rather than a ‘media campaign’, in an apparent swipe at her rival
Mr Jenrick has claimed that returning the benefits bill to pre-pandemic levels would free up enough money for a 2p income tax cut
Ms Badenoch last night has said she is running a ‘grassroots campaign’ to be the next Tory leader rather than a ‘media campaign’, in an apparent swipe at her rival.
The two final candidates for the Conservative leadership have taken different approaches to the final leg of the race to succeed Mr Sunak, with Mr Jenrick having made more public-facing speeches than his rival.
But Ms Badenoch insisted that despite her lower profile early in the race, she was going win.
‘I think we are going to do this. I am not being complacent,’ she told a virtual rally of Tory members held on the platform Teams.
The North West Essex MP added: ‘I am working hard, I am running a grassroots campaign, not a TV campaign or a media campaign.
‘I am getting out there and I am looking forward to meeting many of you on the campaign trail.’
In a wide-ranging question and answer session with Tory members, she claimed Reform UK and the Lib Dems were ‘two sides of the same coin’ when asked how she would regain voters for the Conservatives.
She insisted the Lib Dems had gained so many seats in Parliament because Reform had split the Tories’ vote.
Ms Badenoch added: ‘If we can get our vote back from Reform I think that would tackle quite a lot of the Lib Dem threat that we face.
‘That means being confident Conservatives again.’
Ms Badenoch however said the party needed to ‘spread out and get the common ground back’, rather than ‘tack’ in one particular political direction.
Elsewhere in the session, she told Tory members she was not against leaving the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in order to tackle migration issues which have frustrated ministers.
But unlike Mr Jenrick, who has pitched the leadership contest as a ‘leave or remain’ battle over the ECHR, she said there were pieces of UK law she would like to see reformed first.
Ms Badenoch said: ‘I think the Human Rights Act, for example, there is a lot that we can do there before looking at international treaties.’
She also said there were problems with the Equality Act, which she described as largely a good piece of law, adding: ‘These are the legacies of (former prime minister Sir Tony) Blair’s constitutional settlement. We can unpick them.’
Mr Jenrick had claimed earlier on Wednesday in a speech in Westminster that returning the benefits bill to pre-pandemic levels would free up enough money for a 2p income tax cut.
Taking Margaret Thatcher as his example, the Conservative leadership hopeful argued for a small-state, lower-regulation Britain.
He said: ‘I am setting a simple target: we will bring the inactivity rate back down to its pre-pandemic level, bringing almost 500,000 people back into the workforce.’
Along with sacking 100,000 civil servants, replacing ‘failed’ universities with ‘apprenticeship hubs’ and reforming the planning system to build more houses, Mr Jenrick argued for ‘responsible’ tax cuts funded by getting more people back into work.
Mr Jenrick also stressed the need to cut taxes ‘responsibly’, arguing Ms Truss’s mini-budget had been a ‘damaging episode’ as it had paired tax cuts with ‘massive spending’ on support for energy bills – something he described as ‘the largest single welfare bailout, I think, in our country’s modern history’.
Conservative members have until October 31 to vote for their preferred leader, with the result announced on November 2.
