Jenrick tells Tory conference it’s ‘leave or die’ as he ramps up calls for UK to leave ECHR

Good morning. The Conservative party conference is essentially a four-day hustings event this year, but there are hustings within hustings and some of the most important are the Q&As taking place on the main conference stage. This afternoon Kemi Badenoch and Tom Tugendhat are up; tomorrow it’s Robert Jenrick and James Cleverly.

There is not a lot of non-leadership action at the conference, but today we’re also getting Liz Truss, the former PM, and Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor she brought in to repair the damage caused by her mini-budget. It will be interesting to see what sort of reception Truss gets. The conference slogan is “review and rebuild”, and yesterday there was a session in the conference hall devoted to the general election. But, when talking about why they lost, there are almost no Tories willing to admit the obvious – which is that between 2019 and 2022 and party gave up governing properly and instead decided to stage a ‘Who can be the worst prime minister ever?’ contest, and that as a result its poll ratings dropped like a stone. None of the four leadership candidates are addressing this.

But this morning Jenrick, the bookmakers’ favourite in the contest, is talking about the European convention on human rights. He is the only candidate firmly committed to withdrawal and he has got a new slogan to publicise this. Co-opting the spirit of Brexit, he is telling members it’s leave or remain. (Jenrick, of course, voted remain in 2016; at that point he was a Cameroon centrist, not a rightwing Brexiter.)

In a story for the Daily Telegraph, Ben Riley-Smith has extracts from what Jenrick will say on this at a rally this morning. Jenrick will tell Tories that it’s not just leave or remain; it is leave or die for the party.

Our party’s survival rests on restoring our credibility on immigration. If we continue to duck and dance around this question our party has no future.

Despite what others might falsely claim, we’ve never had a legal cap on legal migration. Unless we introduce one – where no visas will be issued unless net migration is in the tens of thousands or lower – we will be powerless to end the cycle of broken promises. Anyone who is not prepared to commit to a specific cap just doesn’t understand the depth of public anger.

I am not prepared to gamble the house on some five-year review process that may or may not see us doing what is obviously necessary. I have a plan ready now: leave the ECHR and introduce a legally binding cap on legal migration.

The choice is clear, it’s leave or remain. In fact it’s more than that – it is leave or die. If we don’t do this now, we’ll never restore the public’s trust and there’s every chance that Reform will grow and grow and condemn us to obscurity.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9am: Robert Jenrick is due to speak at a conference rally.

9.30am: Jeremy Hunt, the shadow chancellor, takes part in a Q&A on the conference stage.

9.50am: Members debates take place, covering immigration, free speech, housebuilding and the economy. Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former business secretary, is speaking.

10.30am: Jenrick takes part in a Q&A at a Conservative Women’s Organisation fringe. At 11.15 Kemi Badenoch is taking part in a Q&A.

10.45am: Michael Gove, the former levelling up secretary, takes part in a Q&A at an IPPR North and Onward fringe.

11am: Jenrick speaks at a European Research Group fringe.

12.30pm: Liz Truss, the former PM, takes part in a Q&A at a fringe meeting.

2pm: Badenoch and Tom Tugendhat take part in a Q&A on the conference stage.

2pm: James Cleverly takes part in a Q&A at a a Conservative Women’s Organisation fringe.

3pm: Cleverly takes part in a Q&A at on Onward fringe.

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"Review and Rebuild" slogans at the Tory conference.
“Review and Rebuild” slogans at the Tory conference. Photograph: Henry Nicholls/AFP/Getty Images
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Key events

Badenoch says she is someone who can ‘cut through’ at a time when it is hard for Tories to be heard

Kemi Badenoch starts with a short speech about her campaign.

She says it is called Renewal 2030, not Kemi for leader, because she thinks this is an existential moment for the party.

She thougth they 2020s were going to be a great decade for the party. They had a brilliant leader. But things did not work out, she says.

She says voters will not vote for the party they kicked out. To win, the party has to change.

That is why her campaign is about renewing everything.

The party will need a leader who can “cut through at a time when it is very difficult to be heard”, she says.

Kemi Badenoch at the conference this morning. Photograph: Jacob King/PA

Kemi Badenoch will shortly be speaking at the Conservative Women’s Organisation fringe shortly.

Earlier, in an interview, Richard Fuller, the Tory chair, said Badenoch’s decision to clarify what she meant she she was asked about maternity pay yesterday. Fuller said:

We all say things at certain times in the pressure of the moment where perhaps we need to clarify later.

I think it’s a sign of maturity for each of the candidates that they’re able to set out their store about what they want to see as the future of the party and, from time to time, that will require clarification. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.

We don’t want a whole generation of glib politicians who are just fantastic in the moment, but don’t think through long term what their answers to questions should be.

Jenrick is now taking quickfire questions.

Q: Invesment in public transport or roads?

Jenrick says both are important. But he says the Conservative party “has to be on the side of motorists, because it is a London-centric view that people have good quality public transport”.

Robert Jenrick with Victoria Atkins, the shadow health secretary, at the conference.
Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Jenrick floats case for amending laws like Human Rights Act or Equality Act

Q: Are you worried about decisions being outsourced to officials, quangos and third-party experts. Being a councillor feels like accountability without responsibility. How would you change that?

Jenrick says this will get worse. Labour is creating more quangos and bodies like this – “Great British Energy, Great British Railways, the National Wealth Fund, you name it.” And these bodies will be staffed by people of a leftwing or liberal mindset.

He says quangos were set up with good intentions.

But now they need to be cut back, he says.

And he says the Tories should have cut back things like the Climate Change Act, the Human Rights Act and the Equality Act.

He says there is a case for something like a Great Reform Act that would review this network of law. He says many of theses laws have “noble aims”, but they constrain what ministers can do. He goes on:

And so I think we should think about. Should some of these go? Should they be amended? Can they be improved? And that that would be a major reform that we could bring in as soon as possible.

Q: You are backing a British bill of rights. But we tried that before, and Dominic Raab’s plan did not work?

Jenrick says the problem last time was that the UK was going to remain in the ECHR. Leaving the ECHR would make all the difference, he says.

He says the Tories could also use this to “strengthen rights in some areas that we Conservatives care a great deal about, freedom of speech, for example, property rights, freedom of religion”.

Jenrick says Tories should take inspiration from recovery of Conservatives in Canada

Jenrick says the Tories should take inspiration from the recovery of the Conservative party in Canada. He says:

And I want to do that. And I take a lot of inspiration from our sister party in Canada, and just before the election was called, I went to meet them, and there you see a party which does not resile from traditional conservative values. They campaign on virtually the same issues that I do, immigration, lower taxes, building homes for young people, crime – we would probably add in the NHS – but similar issues.

But through great social media, really good communication, they’re able to explain them to a broad audience of people, including younger people, and they are now beating super woke Justin Trudeau with the 20-somethings, the 30-somethings, the 40-somethings, and appear to be on the cusp of winning an election.

Q: What do you mean by change? And how can the Tories appeal to people who defected to the Lib Dems?

Jenrick claims the electorate is not as divided as people think. Voters have three big concerns: the economy, immigration and the NHS.

As a party, the Tories did not do enough to deliver on those issues.

He says the party needs to improve its offer on those issues. If it can, it can win back voters who went to Reform UK on the right, and who went to Labour and the Lib Dems on the left.

He calls for a cap on immigration numbers, in the tens of thousands, and the revival of the Rwanda policy to deal with illegal immigration.

In the autumn of 2022, the party lost its reputation for sound financial management, he says. (He is referring to Liz Truss, but does not name her.)

On Reform UK, he says it is “a sympton not a cause”. It exists because the Tories did not deliver on immigration. The Tories must show they are under new management, he says. But they should “persuade, not provoke people”.

Jenrick says he was at the Conservative party conferene in 2005 when David Cameron impressed members with a passionate, no-notes speech, which led to him overtaking David Davis, who until then had been the favourite in leadership contest.

But Jenrick claims at the time he wondered why it had taken the party eight years to choose an election winner like Cameron.

Jenrick speaks at Conservative Women’s Organisation fringe

Robert Jenrick is speaking at a Conservative Women’s Organisation fringe at the conference. He starts by saying the CWO is the world’s oldest female political organisation linked to a party.

He says he is reluctant to talk about men’s issues and women’s issues. But there are things the party does need to do to ensure it appeals to women, he says.

He says the party could hope for Labout to fail. But he wants the Conservative party to change.

In office, it achieved much, he says. But it must acknowledge its failures. It did not control the borders and lower taxes.

If the Tories accept their failings, and listen to the public, they can rebuild people’s trust.

He stands for change, he says.

People arriving at the party conference in the rain this morning. Photograph: Henry Nicholls/AFP/Getty Images

Jenrick claims Badenoch’s ‘leave or amend’ approach to ECHR won’t work

Peter Walker

Peter Walker

Robert Jenrick has used a campaign rally just outside the Conservative conference to paint the issue of migration in highly stark terms, saying his party will “die” if it does not commit to quitting the European convention on human rights. (See 8.23am.)

Speaking to supporters in a studio theatre at Birmingham Rep, Jenrick repeated his styling of the issue in Brexit terms, saying the choice was between the “leave” of leaving the ECHR or “remain” of staying in it, and that this was a chance to “get migration done”.

He again criticised opponents like Kemi Badenoch who have said they would first seek to change the way the convention works. He said:

This is more than just, ‘leave or amend’ – frankly, our party doesn’t have a future unless we take a stand and fix this problem. It’s leave or die for our party – I’m for leave.

Asked by reporters afterwards if this was not a bit hyperbolic, Jenrick rejected this. He said. “If we don’t take a stand on fixing illegal migration, restoring sovereignty to our people and our parliament, there isn’t a future for the Conservative party,” he insisted.

At the rally, which at times resembled a general election event with the crowd of placard-holding supporters standing behind Jenrick in the half-full hall, he took several swipes at party officials for not allowing him and the other leadership candidates more of a chance to speak inside the conference.

He also repeatedly placed the issue of leaving the ECHR as connected to crime and terrorism, saying that the country was not able to be safe if it could not deport overseas nationals convicted of serious offences who blocked their removal via the convention.

Asked if he was more explicitly linking migration and crime or terrorism, as done by Donald Trump, Jenrick rejected this.

Foreign national offenders in our country,who we have struggled to deport because of our membership of the European Convention on Human Rights – that’s the issue I was raising.

Robert Jenrick speaking at a breakfast rally this morning. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

Hunt says it is essential for Tories to win back younger voters

Jeremy Hunt ended his Q&A with Daniel Finkelstein by saying the Tories had to win back younger voters. He said:

What is the biggest challenge we face as a party?

Our biggest strategic challenge is the fact that the average age above which you are more likely to vote Conservative than Labour is now over 60.

If we are the party of aspiration, we have to have a message for 30-somethings, 40-somethings, starting out on their life, who are prepared to work hard, who are conservatives to their fingertips, in their values, in the way they lead their lives, in their belief in all the things that all of us believe in.

We have to have a message that appeals to them.

So I would say, as we rebuild our trust with the British people, a litmus test of whether we are on track is whether we are starting to do things that rebuild confidence, trust and excitement amongst those generations, because they’re not just the future of the country, they’re the future of our party as well.

This chart, from a More in Common election analysis, illustrates the point Hunt was making about the crossover point, the age at which people are more likely to vote Tory than Labour. More in Common says it was 62 at the last election. In 2019 it was 39.

Voting crossover point at 2024 election Photograph: More in Common

Jeremy Hunt claims welfare reform will become ‘untouchable’ for Labour because of winter fuel payments cut backlash

Q: Do you accept claims from groups like the Resolution Foundation that any party would find it hard to cut tax now?

Hunt says cutting taxes would be a challenge. But he says countries with lower tax have higher growth.

He says he is worried that welfare reform will now be “untouchable” for the Labour partly because of the backlash to the decision to cut the winter fuel payments.

My worry about the last 12 weeks is Labour have got themselves so badly burnt with the mess they’ve got into over winter fuel allowance that welfare reform will now become untouchable for them.

If they worried about a battle with the Labour party on benefits paid to pensioners, including wealthier pensioners, you can imagine what a challenge it would be to cut the bill for working-age disabled people, which is due to increase by £25bn a year over the next five years. It’s a huge, huge increase.

He says the bill for benefits for working age disabled people is due to increase by £25bn over the next five years. That is an area where there is a crucial need for reform, he says. But he claims Labour will not address this.

Jeremy Hunt (left) and Daniel Finkelstein on the conference stage. Photograph: Jacob King/PA
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Hunt claims economy, and government’s fiscal position, much better than Labour says

Jeremy Hunt, the shadow chancellor, is speaking at the conference hall now. He is being interviewed by Daniel Finkelstein, the Times columnist and Tory peer.

Hunt says Rachel Reeves’ claim that the Tories left the worst economic inheritance since the war is one of “the biggest lies” told by Labour.

He says he would have died to have had the legacy Reeves had when he took over.

He says a Freedom of Information Act inquiry by the Financial Times recently showed the Treasury was unwilling to justify its claim that there is a £22bn black hole in the public finances.

UPDATE: Asked if he agreed with Labour’s claim that the state of the economy will get worse before it gets better, Hunt said:

They will get worse if Labour makes catastrophic mistakes in the budget and hikes up tax in a way that destroys growth.

I think one of the biggest lies we’ve had since Labour came to office is this nonsense about having the worst economic inheritance since the second world war …

You don’t have to take my word for it, I mean just read this week’s Economist where there’s an article saying that [Reeves] could have actually not have a black hole of £22bn but a surplus of £39bn.

Hunt was referring to this Economist article. Here is an extract.

The reality is more nuanced. The Tories did plenty to mute growth and muddle the public finances. But Ms Reeves has more wriggle room than she has let on. The constraints she faces on tax are largely self-imposed. Even the £22bn black hole is something of a mirage. Perhaps around half was truly unforeseeable: troubling cost overruns on the asylum system and more. But, as one-offs, these don’t affect Britain’s fiscal position much. The other half—pay bumps for public-sector workers—will have a fiscal impact but were no surprise …

Jeremy Hunt, Ms Reeves’s predecessor, left Britain with £8.9bn in “fiscal headroom”, the amount of borrowing permitted before the government violates its fiscal rules. Since then gilt yields have fallen, growth has been strong-ish and another fiscal year has passed, which rolls the five-year target on by another year. That should push Britain’s fiscal headroom up once the OBR updates its forecasts. Capital Economics, a consultancy, reckons it will hit £22bn.

With tweaks, that headroom could rise further still. One sensible move would be to exclude the Bank of England’s losses from quantitative easing from the definition of public debt used for the fiscal rules. Doing so would push headroom up by another £17bn, to £39bn.

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Nigel Farage tells Tories not to believe what Jenrick and Badenoch say about immigration

Talking of Nigel Farage, yesterday the Reform UK leader posted a thread on social media attacking the two favourites to be next Tory leader. He said Robert Jenrick and Kemi Badenoch cannot be trusted on immigration.

Conservative Party Conference begins in earnest tomorrow.

Until now, I have refrained from intervening in the upcoming leadership election — but the time has come.

[THREAD]

— Nigel Farage MP (@Nigel_Farage) September 29, 2024

Conservative Party Conference begins in earnest tomorrow.

Until now, I have refrained from intervening in the upcoming leadership election — but the time has come.

Kemi Badenoch has spent weeks positioning herself as tough on immigration.

But in 2018 she campaigned in Parliament to increase legal migration, and was the biggest champion for students bringing in dependents.

I don’t believe a word that she says on anything.

Formerly a man that believed in nothing, Robert Jenrick now pitches himself as the great hardliner.

This is almost certainly done for political gain and not out of conviction. He will divide the party.

I doubt that Jenrick will last long if he wins.

The Conservative Party is split down the middle and the brand is completely broken.

Why are Farage’s views relevant? Because, if they had the option, a large number of Tory members would probably vote for him as leader. According to a survey of members by ConservativeHome carried out after the election in July, 36% of members favour an electoral pact with Reform UK at the next election, 12% favour a full merger, and only half of them would rule out any form of deal or pact.

Polling of Tory members on Reform UK Photograph: ConservativeHome
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Jenrick rated lower than other candidates on having what it takes to be good PM, poll suggests

Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, is backed by more voters as having the qualities needed to be a good prime minister than any of the four Tory leadership candidates, according to new polling by Ipsos reported in the Standard.

But voters are also far more likely to say Farage does not have the qualities needed to be a good PM than any of the Tory candidates, the same polling shows.

Looking at net scores on this measure (those who say they would be a good PM, minus those who say they would not), Farage does worse than all the Tory leadership candidates – although the only one, Tom Tugendhat, has a big lead over him.

According to the Ipsos figures, Farage has 24% of people saying he would be a good PM, 62% saying he wouldn’t, giving him a net score of -38.

Robert Jenrick is the next worse on this measure. Some 10% think he would be good, 47% say he wouldn’t, giving him a net score of -37.

Kemi Badenoch’s ratings are similar. Som 11% think she would be good, 45% say she wouldn’t, giving her a net score of -34.

James Cleverly has most positive support of the four leadership candidates, with 15% saying he would be a good PM. But 46% say he wouldn’t, making a net score of -31.

Tom Tugendhat has 12% of people saying he would be good. But, perhaps because he is less well known than the others, only 37% say he would be a bad PM, making a net score of -25.

Tory chair Richard Fuller says contest won’t be cut short to allow new leader to be in place for budget

Richard Fuller, the Conservative party chair, has ruled out changing the timetable for the leadership contest so the new leader can be in place in time for the budget on Wednesday 30 October.

Yesterday Robert Jenrick and Tom Tugendhat both said they wanted the end date brought forward. Kemi Badenoch has said she is happy with the schedule already agreed.

It has been reported that senior figures in the party are talking about cutting the time allocated for the members’ ballot, so the new leader can respond to the budget.

But Fuller told BBC Breakfast today the timetable would not change. He said:

We had this debate some months ago. I think we had a very long discussion between the voluntary party and the 1922 Committee, which represents MPs.

The 1922 Committee wanted a longer campaign. They wanted to have four candidates here at conference.

And the logistics of that mean that when we whittle it down to two and it goes to the members, there’s a period of time for the members to vote, and my job is to make sure that members have enough time to get their ballot papers and return their ballot papers, and that’s why we ended up with the time frame we have.

Asked if that meant “no change”, Fuller replied: “No change.”

Richard Fuller. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

Labour calls for inquiry into donations worth £75,000 to Jenrick’s campaign

Labour has called for an investigation into £75,000 of donations to Tory leadership contender Robert Jenrick, saying it had “serious concerns” about the money’s ultimate origin, PA Media reports. PA says:

Jenrick, the frontrunner for the Conservative leadership, received three donations of £25,000 in July from The Spott Fitness, a fitness coaching app provider.

As first reported by the Tortoise news website, the company’s latest accounts show it has no employees, has never made a profit and has more than £300,000 of debts, and in January it registered a loan from Centrovalli, a company registered in the British Virgin Islands.

The ownership of companies registered in the British Virgin Islands is not made public, leading Labour to question where the money donated to Jenrick ultimately came from.

Party chair Ellie Reeves said in a letter to the Electoral Commission: “Donations to MPs must come from sources registered in the UK. It is clear that Mr Jenrick has serious questions to answer about the origin of these funds and their legality.”

A source close to Jenrick’s campaign dismissed Labour’s request as “nonsense”, saying it served to “prove who Labour fear the most”.

Speaking to Sky News on Sunday, Jenrick insisted no laws had been broken. He said: “As I understand it, this is a fitness company that operates in the UK. It’s a perfectly legal and valid donation under British law and we’ve set it out in the public domain in the way that one does with donations.”

Jenrick tells Tory conference it’s ‘leave or die’ as he ramps up calls for UK to leave ECHR

Good morning. The Conservative party conference is essentially a four-day hustings event this year, but there are hustings within hustings and some of the most important are the Q&As taking place on the main conference stage. This afternoon Kemi Badenoch and Tom Tugendhat are up; tomorrow it’s Robert Jenrick and James Cleverly.

There is not a lot of non-leadership action at the conference, but today we’re also getting Liz Truss, the former PM, and Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor she brought in to repair the damage caused by her mini-budget. It will be interesting to see what sort of reception Truss gets. The conference slogan is “review and rebuild”, and yesterday there was a session in the conference hall devoted to the general election. But, when talking about why they lost, there are almost no Tories willing to admit the obvious – which is that between 2019 and 2022 and party gave up governing properly and instead decided to stage a ‘Who can be the worst prime minister ever?’ contest, and that as a result its poll ratings dropped like a stone. None of the four leadership candidates are addressing this.

But this morning Jenrick, the bookmakers’ favourite in the contest, is talking about the European convention on human rights. He is the only candidate firmly committed to withdrawal and he has got a new slogan to publicise this. Co-opting the spirit of Brexit, he is telling members it’s leave or remain. (Jenrick, of course, voted remain in 2016; at that point he was a Cameroon centrist, not a rightwing Brexiter.)

In a story for the Daily Telegraph, Ben Riley-Smith has extracts from what Jenrick will say on this at a rally this morning. Jenrick will tell Tories that it’s not just leave or remain; it is leave or die for the party.

Our party’s survival rests on restoring our credibility on immigration. If we continue to duck and dance around this question our party has no future.

Despite what others might falsely claim, we’ve never had a legal cap on legal migration. Unless we introduce one – where no visas will be issued unless net migration is in the tens of thousands or lower – we will be powerless to end the cycle of broken promises. Anyone who is not prepared to commit to a specific cap just doesn’t understand the depth of public anger.

I am not prepared to gamble the house on some five-year review process that may or may not see us doing what is obviously necessary. I have a plan ready now: leave the ECHR and introduce a legally binding cap on legal migration.

The choice is clear, it’s leave or remain. In fact it’s more than that – it is leave or die. If we don’t do this now, we’ll never restore the public’s trust and there’s every chance that Reform will grow and grow and condemn us to obscurity.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9am: Robert Jenrick is due to speak at a conference rally.

9.30am: Jeremy Hunt, the shadow chancellor, takes part in a Q&A on the conference stage.

9.50am: Members debates take place, covering immigration, free speech, housebuilding and the economy. Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former business secretary, is speaking.

10.30am: Jenrick takes part in a Q&A at a Conservative Women’s Organisation fringe. At 11.15 Kemi Badenoch is taking part in a Q&A.

10.45am: Michael Gove, the former levelling up secretary, takes part in a Q&A at an IPPR North and Onward fringe.

11am: Jenrick speaks at a European Research Group fringe.

12.30pm: Liz Truss, the former PM, takes part in a Q&A at a fringe meeting.

2pm: Badenoch and Tom Tugendhat take part in a Q&A on the conference stage.

2pm: James Cleverly takes part in a Q&A at a a Conservative Women’s Organisation fringe.

3pm: Cleverly takes part in a Q&A at on Onward fringe.

If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line (BTL) or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.

If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. I’m still using X and I’ll see something addressed to @AndrewSparrow very quickly. I’m also trying Bluesky (@andrewsparrowgdn) and Threads (@andrewsparrowtheguardian).

I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos (no error is too small to correct). And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.

“Review and Rebuild” slogans at the Tory conference. Photograph: Henry Nicholls/AFP/Getty Images
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