Let me get a few things clear by way of ideological housekeeping. I am a member of the Conservative Party and have been, on and off, for years. But if there were an election tomorrow, I would vote for Reform.
Partly as an act of fealty to the most consequential British politician of modern times (Nigel Farage) and also as an act of contrition for being an enthusiastic supporter of Boris Johnson (a leader I continue to admire but cannot forgive for allowing mass migration to reach unprecedented levels).
You will see, even in that paragraph, a mass of contradictions. And really, that’s okay in my book. Politics is not perfectible. Politicians are not infallible.
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They are human, and like all of us, make mistakes, take wrong turns and generally cock-up. What can’t be changed are first principles. Mine are conservative. I believe in small government, self-reliance, the rule of law, free speech, family, faith and flag.
Those are pretty universal values on the Right and will be shared by many people, whether they be Reform voters or Tory.
Beyond that common ground, however, lies complexity and the risk of internecine division. And nobody embodies that dynamic more right now than Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary.
I am a big fan. But, increasingly, when I say so on X, I cop a lot of flak. The recent upsurge in anti-Jenrick feeling seems to be coming from the very top of Reform, which may be a mark of his success.
Nigel Farage this week posted a video pointing out that Jenrick, an enthusiastic supporter of the Epping protests, had once boasted as a minister of increasing the number of hotel rooms taken by illegal migrants.
Farage and Jenrick have an ace up their Sleeve: they must bury the hatchet and use it on Labour – Colin Brazier
|Getty Images
Jenrick says his comments have been taken out of context, and I haven’t the space here to re-litigate whether he is more sinned against the sinning.
What I will say is that politics is a rough trade and, for all I wish, politicians would play the ball and not the man, ad hominem insults are part of the warp and weft of the Westminster circus.
In March, for instance, Robert Jenrick took a pop at Nigel Farage for going to the Cheltenham Races, rather than dealing with Parliamentary business. It’s not clear in this bout of playground politics who really threw the first punch.
But in a sense, it doesn’t matter. There are bigger questions to be answered. The first is whether Robert Jenrick’s reinvention as a centrist reborn as a rottweiler is sincere and honest.
Is he a living embodiment of John Maynard Keynes’ famous (if misattributed) maxim “When the facts change, I change my mind”? Or is Jenrick a weather-vane, blown by the winds of opportunism?
I spoke to two good friends about this yesterday. One is extremely well-connected in Reform and thinks Jenrick’s positioning is tactical and inauthentic.
The other was a contemporary of Jenrick’s at Cambridge, and who campaigned alongside him at the last General Election. He took an interesting position.
Yes, he said, Jenrick had been part of the floppy middle of the Tory party. And, yes, he was there because that was where he had to be to ‘get ahead’.
But it never reflected his true views, which - like a very angry butterfly emerging from the chrysalis - he can now reveal.
I would argue there are strong grounds for believing that the real Robert Jenrick has now stood up. In March, I posted an article on X that he had written for the Daily Telegraph and which I reposted this week.
It is a closely argued, intellectually coherent and utterly uncompromising prospectus for change. It makes arguments about the failure of multiculturalism, which, even a decade ago, no front-bencher could make without being demoted to the backbenches.
Now, you may be the kind of person who thinks astute politicians can turn on a dime (think Boris and his articles, both for staying in and getting out of the EU).
But, call me credulous if you like, I thought Jenrick’s Telegraph article bore the imprint of sincere and long-held convictions.
There are other grounds for saying so. This week, Jenrick posted a picture of himself, up a lamp-post, tying on a Union Flag.
His critics called him a convert to flag worship (not the most commonly used phrase). And yet this was the same Robert Jenrick, disgracefully ridiculed by BBC Breakfast presenters for having the temerity to do an interview in front of a Union Flag four years ago. Whatever else his patriotism is, it is not new.
Jenrick still does MSM interviews (his appearances on BBC and Times Radio are consistently head and shoulders above what many of his fellow front-benchers are capable of), but it is in the world of social media that his re-invention has catalysed.
I first noticed him on X a year ago, wearing a hoodie which said: ‘Hamas are terrorists”. A stunt, yes, but one requiring a little bit of gumption on the streets of Londonistan. Then came his videos. His ‘explainer’ about Chagos was slick and informative and deserving of its 2.4m views on Twitter alone. More followed. About the attorney general, bin strikes, and migration.
The language was demotic. Illegals came from “backward” countries, shoplifters were “scumbags” and Eritreans were “20 times more likely to be convicted of sex offences”.
He wasn’t above citing the safety of his own daughters when it came to keeping British women safe on the streets. We are, he said, in danger of “losing our country”.
It was performative righteous indignation, but it also got things done. His video about fare-dodging on the Tube prompted a rise in ticket inspections.
But most of all, it moved the Overton Window. Channel 4 and LBC looked ridiculous when their ‘take’ on Jenrick’s tube vigilantism was to ask whether he had any legal right to film on the Underground, rather than whether law-abiding commuters should be subsidising freeloaders.
On the BBC’s Thought for the Day, he was denounced as a xenophobe. But such was the backlash, the broadcaster removed the clip from its website.
What do we want from our leaders? I want moral courage, and sometimes that courage has to be physical. Filming on the Tube, Jenrick appears to be threatened by a man with a knife. In northern France, he is chased out of a camp by migrants hurling bottles.
He is not the only Tory who says and does things popular with Reform voters. Neil O’Brien, Katie Lam, Andrew Griffith and Danny Kruger are all emerging as strong voices of the Right.
Nick Timothy may be the strongest of all (representing a more remarkable reinvention than Robert Jenrick’s, given Nick Timothy’s previous job as Theresa May’s consigliere).
Ultimately, I want our politicians to deliver two outcomes. First, for Labour’s student union tribute act to be consigned to history at the next election.
Second, for a right-wing government to honour its commitments. Not to be browbeaten by the blob, blown off course by civil servants, the media, and the caterwauling of unelected NGOs.
In short, I want a government that does what Robert Jenrick says he wants. An end to mass migration, two-tier justice, open borders and the cultural asymmetry which makes native Britons second-class citizens in their own country.
In a perfect world, Jenrick and Farage would collaborate, rather than fight. But if that proves impossible, Jenrick will have served his purpose.
Helping to make mainstream a worldview which, a generation ago, would have seen him dismissed as a pound-shop Enoch Powell.