He returned to government a year later as a health minister under Truss – one of the prime minister’s rare appointments of a Sunak backer. And when Sunak entered Number 10, he took on the immigration brief and attended cabinet.
Many believed that the Tory moderate had been sent to the Home Office to, in effect, “man mark” Suella Braverman, the much more hardline home secretary. The pair were widely expected to fall out.
In fact, Braverman and Jenrick were Cambridge University contemporaries who attended each other’s weddings.
In any case, their relationship was helped by a clear shift in Jenrick’s approach while he was in the role. This is something he acknowledges, saying his views were hardened by what he learnt about the immigration system in the Home Office.
Earlier as communities secretary when working closely with the Home Office on immigration and extremism, he is understood to have become frustrated that the Home Office was seen as the “bad cop” on these issues while his own department was seen as the “good cop,” and he resolved to tackle that.
In one of his most notable actions as immigration minister, in July 2023 Jenrick was criticised for ordering that murals of cartoon characters be painted over at a reception centre for child asylum seekers in Dover. He now says this was a mistake.
In December 2023, he resigned from Sunak’s cabinet, saying the prime minister’s emergency Rwanda legislation did not go far enough and would not work.
Ever since, he has been outspoken about what he sees as his party’s failure to deliver on its promises to cut immigration, leading calls for the UK to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights and for a legal cap on migration.
This helped him attract support from MPs previously loyal to his former boss, Suella Braverman, who ruled herself out of the leadership contest.
At the Tory conference, Jenrick provoked a backlash from two of his leadership rivals by claiming that British special forces were “killing rather than capturing terrorists” because of human rights law – but stood by it.
His pitch is that the party needs to “get serious” and confront hard truths – and that only he can make the changes needed to win the next election.
Jenrick says a “clear plan”, not “platitudes” – a dig at rival Kemi Badenoch – is needed to settle key Tory policies so the party can win back the public’s trust.
Source:
www.bbc.com
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