Leadership hopeful Jenrick says Tories must ‘show we know where we went wrong’

Six candidates are vying to replace Rishi Sunak as the party seeks to rebuild after its general election mauling.

Robert Jenrick will launch his Tory leadership campaign in Newark on Friday (Jordan Pettitt/PA) (PA Archive)

Tory leadership hopeful Robert Jenrick will say his party has “a mountain to climb” and has to “show the country we know where we went wrong” to win the next election.

The former immigration minister is one of six candidates battling it out to replace Rishi Sunak as the Conservative Party seeks to rebuild after its worst-ever General Election result.

The Newark MP will tell Conservative members at his launch rally in the East Midlands on Friday that the party has to undergo serious changes to regain voters’ trust.

If we show the country we know where we went wrong and have learned our lessons... I know we can win again

Robert Jenrick

He is expected to say: “They say Sir Keir Starmer is guaranteed a decade in Downing Street.

“We have a mountain to climb.

“Trust is hard fought, but easily lost. It can’t be restored overnight.

“But if the party learns the hard lessons, listens to the country and shows the party has changed, if we show the country that we have listened, if we show the country we know where we went wrong and have learned our lessons, if we show that we understand the scale of the challenges this country faces and are capable of delivering for Britain again, if we show that we have come together, a broad church, but united by a common creed, above all, if we show that we have changed, I know we can win again.

“Not in two terms. Not in a decade. But at the next general election.”

Mr Jenrick, who was nicknamed “Robert Generic” when first elected to the Commons in 2014, will campaign on a tough stance of cutting immigration and pulling out of the European Convention on Human Rights.

In a campaign video this week, he said Mr Sunak’s party had been “unable or unwilling” to do what was required to reduce the number of people coming to the UK.

Hundreds of thousands of people “we didn’t need” had arrived legally while “dangerous” immigrants could not be deported, he said.

Mr Jenrick resigned from Mr Sunak’s government last year, claiming that the plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda did not go far enough.

“I believe that anyone who comes here illegally must be deported within days,” he said in his pitch to replace Mr Sunak.

Bookmakers have Mr Jenrick as second favourite in the race behind shadow communities secretary Kemi Badenoch.

The two rivals from the right of the party are up against shadow work and pensions secretary Mel Stride, shadow security minister Tom Tugendhat, shadow home secretary James Cleverly and former home secretary Dame Priti Patel – with the winner named on November 2.

The field will be whittled down to four in time for the Tory conference in Birmingham in the autumn before MPs vote for a final two who will face a ballot of Conservative members.

The party faces the twin challenges of responding to the threat from Nigel Farage’s Reform UK on the right, as well as winning back former heartlands in southern England which shifted to the Liberal Democrats.

Suella Braverman, who bowed out of the race last week, warned the Tories have “no chance of winning the next general election” as long as Mr Farage’s outfit “is a viable alternative”.

The former home secretary denied speculation she might defect unless she was “driven out to Reform by my colleagues”.

Arguing that Tory-to-Reform defector Lee Anderson “should be a Conservative MP”, Ms Braverman told GB News: “We should not be hounding out Conservatives, right-wingers, Eurosceptics, people who want to stand up for our flag and our faith as if they are somehow swivel-eyed loons.”

She cautioned any Tory leader against “complacency” over the threat from the right, saying “Reform can do better” and “young people are voting more for Reform than they are for the Conservatives”.