What on earth has happened to the once urbane, mild-mannered Robert Jenrick? There was a time when he would have been described as an identikit supporter of David Cameron, who could barely blow the skin off a political rice pudding.
In the intervening years he has transformed into a politician whose every uttering is seemingly designed to cause controversy in the area of immigration. These are not throwaway remarks, they are deliberate, and because of that they are dangerous.
During the recent Conservative leadership contest, Jenrick thought that he could metaphorically find the Conservative Party’s G spot by talking in such a way. It proved to be a catastrophic mistake and he lost by a higher than expected margin to Kemi Badenoch. She then appointed him to shadow the Justice brief, and he has spent the past three months more or less seemingly ignoring that job, and continuing in his bid to keep immigration at the top of the Tory agenda.
To be honest, after his comments over the last three days, he is lucky not only to have a job, but to still have the Conservative whip. Words have consequences and politicians have a duty to choose their words very carefully, especially when talking about immigration, race and religion.
Responsible free speech is a wonderful thing, which our democracy should cherish, but most people know when they breach the undoubted limits of free speech. Jenrick has come very close to doing that.
So what has he said that is so dangerous? On Saturday afternoon at 2.26pm, the politician formerly in charge of immigration, posted on X about the grooming gangs scandal that is currently preoccupying Elon Musk and much of the political discourse:
“The scandal started with the onset of mass migration. Importing hundreds of thousands of people from alien cultures, who possess medieval attitudes towards women, brought us here. And after 30 years of this disastrous experiment, we now have entrenched sectarian voting blocs that make it electoral suicide for some MPs to confront this. This scandal shows why we must end it. The foreign nationals responsible must be deported – no ifs, no buts. And the officials that covered up must be sent to jail for their appalling cowardice.”
This wasn’t a throwaway comment in an interview. It was deliberately designed to back up the outrageous comments of Musk. He also said: “This appalling affair is the final nail in the coffin for liberals who still cling to the argument that Britain is an integration success story.”
It is nothing of the sort. Compared to every other European country, integration has indeed been a success in the UK. Of course there are still challenges and areas where integration has not worked, but to pretend that our issues with assimilating immigrants in this country are worse than anywhere else is pure fiction – wicked fiction.
Talk of “alien cultures” and “medieval attitudes” are phrases which Tommy Robinson, Marine Le Pen or the AfD in Germany might utter. Just as we would condemn them, we must also condemn Jenrick.
His incendiary comments drew some sharp criticism from Conservative colleagues.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp was incandescent at Jenrick’s comments overshadowing his round of Sunday morning interviews. He did his best not to be drawn into a row, but in the end couldn’t avoid disowning Jenrick by saying: “He’ll choose his words, I’ll choose mine.”
Samuel Kasumu, former adviser to Boris Johnson on race issues, went further, though. He said: “He has the potential to incite hatred in ways that I have never seen. He needs to tone it down, or we’re going to have a really terrible 2025.” Strong stuff.
Jenrick was, however, defended by Badenoch who said: “This nonsense of attacking anyone with a different viewpoint as ‘divisive’ has to stop. We MUST be free to have tough conversations, no matter how difficult that may be to hear. We need moral courage, not silencing of debate through personal attacks… The Conservative Party is under new leadership and that means confronting difficult truths.”
She’s right on the general issue, but not the specific. Language matters, and talking about “alien cultures” and “medieval attitudes” and smearing an entire community does nothing to aid a constructive debate or cohesion.
If I were Badenoch I’d have called in Jenrick for an interview without coffee and warned him of the consequences if he did it again.
Jenrick is unrepentant, though. On the Today programme on Tuesday he didn’t pull back at all. Indeed, he doubled down. Musk will be delighted.
It comes to something when Nigel Farage understands and criticises the bile that Musk has spewed, yet Jenrick not only echoes it, but magnifies it. He should hang his head in shame.
Iain Dale presents the Evening Show on LBC Radio, Monday to Thursday, 7-10pm
