Tory leadership hopeful Robert Jenrick has ruffled the feathers of some of Nigel Farage’s allies after pledging to “pass the laws necessary to ensure that anyone that enters Britain illegally will be automatically deported”.
The ex-Immigration Minister, who led his Conservative rivals in the second ballot of MPs earlier this month, appeared to outflank Reform UK yesterday with a slick video setting out his plan to deal with the migrant crisis.
In his video, Jenrick also vowed to “restrict visas and stop giving billions in foreign aid to countries refusing to take back their people”.
Jenrick has unapologetically declared he wants to put Farage “out of business” as he emerges as the most right-leaning leadership contender.
Jenrick ruffles Reform’s feathers after pledging ‘automatic deportations’ for illegal immigrantsPAResponding to Jenrick’s latest intervention, a number of Farage’s allies were keen to dismiss the Newark MP.
Former Ukip donor Arron Banks said: “Wasn’t he a One Nation pro-immigration Tory? What happened?”
Journalist Isabel Oakeshott added: “He can say what he likes -he and his government literally had 14 years to do it all.
“They failed. They won’t be trusted again for many, many years.”
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Robert JenrickGETTYEarlier this month, Farage was asked about his view on mass deportations.
Speaking to GB News, the Reform UK leader said that it is a “political impossibility” to mass deport illegal migrants from Britain.
He added: “If people come illegally, they should not be allowed to stay, simple.
“The only way you’re ever going to solve the Channel is if they know that, number one, they’ll never be granted refugee status by coming via this route, and number two, that they’re not going to stay. It’s dead simple.”
Nigel FarageREUTERSDespite Jenrick’s pivot to the right to take on Reform UK, Farage slapped down the four remaining Conservative leadership hopefuls earlier this month.
He said: “I couldn’t care less, couldn’t care less. They’re all nobodies, complete nobodies.
“Everyone’s forgetting something here, it doesn’t matter a damn who the next Tory leader is.”
However, ex-Prime Minister Theresa May, who stood down ahead of July 4, today suggested the Tory Party should turn its attention to the rise of the Liberal Democrats.
Theresa MayPASir Ed Davey’s party won 72 seats as it smashed through the so-called Blue Wall.
Writing in The Times on the eve of the 2024 Conservative Party conference in Birmingham, Lady May said the Tories had spent “too long tacking to the right in order to appease potential Reform voters” and “forgot that we are not a rightwing party but a centre-right party”.
She added “Just as Ingebrigtsen was focused on Kerr and failed to see that his action against him would open up other threats, so the Conservative Party has been focused on Reform and failed to see the threat from the Liberal Democrats – losing 60 seats to them at the election.”
May’s former seat Maidenhead, which she retained in 2019 with a majority of 18,846, was won by 26-year-old Liberal Democrat Joshua Reynolds by 2,963 votes.