Tory bombshell as Robert Jenrick says party didn't 'care' enough about illegal migration

The former Home Office minister said the Conservative Party should be "repenting” for some of the mistakes it has made - particularly over immigration.

Mr Jenrick is one of a number of senior Tories hoping to replace Rishi Sunak as leader following the general election defeat.

He said it was a "possibility" that his party could be consigned to history.

And he hit out at some of his colleagues, including possible leadership rival James Cleverly, of not caring enough about illegal immigration.

Mr Jenrick survived the drubbing his party got at the polls by holding on to his Newark constituency.

Speaking to the BBC’s Political Thinking with Nick Robinson, Mr Jenrick said his party lost support because it failed to deliver on "crucial issues" such as immigration.

"I don't think that we should assume that the result that we've just suffered is our lowest ebb," he said.

"If we fail to act now with seriousness and change the Conservative Party, then things undoubtedly could get worse."

Mri Sunak has said he will step down as party leader, but is staying on until arrangements for choosing his successor are in place.

The 1922 executive committee, which represents Conservative MPs, will announce the process for picking a new leader next week.

Senior Tories Priti Patel, Suella Braverman, Tom Tugendhat and Kemi Badenoch are all expected to enter the race.

Mr Jenrick, who is on the right of the party, has also been touted as a potential leadership contender.

He insists there needs to be a "proper analysis of what's gone wrong" with the party.

Mr Jenrick served as housing minister under Boris Johnson and in October 2022 was appointed as immigration minister by Mr Sunak.

In December 2023, he dramatically quit his role in protest at the government's Rwanda legislation, which he said did not "go far enough".

"I was literally the only person in the room who was saying, this will not work... and when I left that meeting, I felt that everybody round that table knew that this policy wasn't going to work,” he said.

"No one else was willing to say it, and everyone was just going to go along with it, because they didn't care enough about the issue."

As prime minister, Mr Sunak had promised to stop small boats crossing the Channel.

However, while the number of people making the dangerous crossing fell in 2023, the figures for this year so far are higher than the same period in the previous four years.

Previous Conservative prime ministers had also promised to cut legal net migration - the difference between the number of people arriving in the UK and leaving - to the tens of thousands, but in 2022 it hit a record 764,000.

In 2023, net migration fell by more than 10% to 685,000 and could fall further due to visa rule changes.