On the coffee table in Robert Jenrick ’s Commons office sits an evocative item of US political memorabilia. It’s a badge from Robert F. Kennedy ’s ill-fated presidential campaign in 1968, and it reads: WE WANT BOBBY K.
It’s an in-joke for the Conservative ’s own leadership campaign today. They are about to come out with their own line of merchandise, saying: WE WANT BOBBY J. But who wants Bobby Jenrick? And if they get the mild-mannered 42-year-old solicitor from the English Midlands, what kind of leader would he be? The answer to the first question seems to be: plenty of Tories fed up with untrammelled rates of immigration, both legal and illegal.
Turning back that tide is the centrepiece of Jenrick’s policy pitch, after a startling transformation from bland backbench loyalist to Right-wing culture warrior. “Successive governments promised controlled and reduced immigration only to deliver completely the opposite. And I've been very honest that poor decisions were made by the ministers at the time, immediately after the 2019 general election,” the former communities secretary says.
If that sounds very much like a pitch from Nigel Farage, it’s because Jenrick is on a mission to make Reform UK “redundant”. Far-right rioters may have run rampant across town centres this summer but their grievances need to be debated, not ignored, he insists. The Tory contender talks now about restoring a lost sense of “English identity”, even if he struggles to articul.
