Robert Jenrick launches Conservative leadership bid
Robert Jenrick formally launched his Tory leadership campaign this morning with a radical manifesto for changing Britain, restoring the country’s borders, and smashing Reform UK.
Mr Jenrick uses his campaign launch to explain how he transformed from a loyal party MP to a fervent believer that big changes are needed across the board.
The former immigration minister, who walked out of Rishi Sunak’s government when he realised the former Prime Minister was not being strong enough over Rwanda deportations, explains how he believed the British political system "broadly worked" when he was elected in 2014.
However over the last two years, "I’ve come to see that a new approach is needed".
He explains to potential supporters: "When I was minister for immigration, I saw dangerous people coming into our country. I saw us unable to deport them. I saw hundreds of thousands of people we frankly didn't need, coming in legally.
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Robert Jenrick has stolen a lead with a set of policy promises (Image: Robert Jenrick)
"But our politics was unable or unwilling to deliver what was needed. The new government aren’t going to fix things. They have too many delusions.
"Our party is our country's best hope."
Mr Jenrick, who is currently ranked second in most betting markets, breaks with other candidates’ launch videos in setting out a more precise manifesto of the policies he would lead the Conservative Party with.
Namely quitting the European Court of Human Rights, in order to make parliament sovereign; deporting any illegal migrants in Britain "within days", not months or years; ending mass migration; getting the economy growing through more house building; producing more reliably cheap energy; and getting people off welfare.
He explains: "I want a small state that works. Not a big one that fails."
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Mr Jenrick became radicalised as immigration minister in the Home Office (Image: Getty)
The radical promise of change will grab Tory members’ attention, after the 1922 Committee confirmed yesterday that six candidates made it off the starting line and now will now compete to replace Rishi Sunak.
Mr Jenrick video also boasts that as housing minister he got the number of new homes being built to the highest level for 40 years.
However he issues a stark warning to the Tory party that they desperately need to address the "hard truth" of this month’s General Election catastrophe.
He warns that they lost the election after failing to tackle some major challenges the country is facing.
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"Over the past few decades, a series of complex and interlocking challenges have steadily built up here and across the West.
"Our economy has been growing too slowly and as growth has fallen, taxes have risen. But despite having more of our money than ever, too much of the state is not working.
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"Our NHS has a fifth more money, doctors, and nurses than it did five years ago. But isn't treating any more people.”
In a startling warning, however, Mr Jenrick also says that the severity of these challenges not only cost the Tories the election, but "now threatens our future".
Mr Jenrick joins five other MPs vying for the top job: James Cleverly, Tom Tugendhat, Priti Patel, Kemi Badenoch and Mel Stride.