As internal plots swirl around her, Kemi Badenoch shows no sign of giving up as Conservative leader. But for rival parties, it would seem that she is no longer the main Tory target. In the wake of Tuesday’s High Court ruling, which blocked the housing of asylum seekers at the Bell Hotel in Epping, Reform UK has stepped up its online campaign against Shadow Justice Secretary — and the man tipped by many to soon succeed Badenoch — Robert Jenrick.
The Epping judgment, as well as figures published this morning which reveal that a record 111,084 people applied for asylum in the UK during Keir Starmer’s first year in office, has made immigration the hot-button topic of the week in British politics. After Jenrick attended a protest in Epping on Sunday against the housing of illegal immigrants, Zia Yusuf, the head of Reform’s Department of Government Efficiency initiative, highlighted the Tory politician’s previous claims during his time as immigration minister, when he said that he was seeking to “procure even more” migrant hotels. Since then, Reform’s X page has shared three posts directly attacking Jenrick’s comments, as well as retweeting similar accusations from Yusuf and party leader Nigel Farage. In contrast, the account has name-checked Badenoch just once since early June.
Jenrick has sought to position himself as the standard-bearer of the Tory Right, even outflanking Farage on issues such as immigration and crime. On Monday, citing Jenrick’s earlier comments on migrant hotels, the Reform UK leader called him a “fraud”. Later that day, the official Reform account said the Shadow Justice Secretary “should be in hiding”. Yesterday, Farage posted a video doubling down on the attack, claiming that during Jenrick’s time as immigration minister “we got up to 56,000 people who’d crossed the channel by boat living in hotels,” and adding that “this man is not to be trusted.”
Responding to the Reform claims, Jenrick posted on Tuesday that the suggestion he was “bragging” about opening new hotels for migrants was “absurd” and “a complete lie”. He also accused Yusuf of doctoring footage to misrepresent him, and argued that, alongside then-Home Secretary Suella Braverman, he “set in train the closing of 100 hotels”. Farage’s figure of 56,00 referred to the peak number of asylum seekers being housed in hotel accommodation in the UK, which occurred in September 2023 during the Tories’ time in power. The current total, as most recently measured in April of this year, is 33,000.
Labour has also targeted Jenrick instead of Badenoch in recent days, settling on the same Faragist attack line. On Monday, the party’s X account shared the same 2022 clip of the Conservative frontbencher discussing the increased procurement of hotels, captioning it: “You couldn’t trust [the Tories] then. You can’t trust them now.” This follows a series of Labour ads highlighting Farage’s alleged ties to figures as disparate as Vladimir Putin and Andrew Tate, another sign that Badenoch is not considered by her rivals to be the most potent figure on the British Right. According to aggregate polling by Politico, Reform is currently eight points ahead of Labour — and 11 ahead of the Tories.
Last night, Labour MP Jake Richards sent Badenoch a letter questioning Jenrick’s presence at the Epping protest alongside Eddy Butler, a former strategist for the far-Right British National Party. The Government backbencher said Jenrick had shown “a staggering lack of judgement”, given that he “once proudly boasted about ramping up the procurement of asylum hotels”. For the Shadow Justice Minister, the problem is more fundamental. Responding to Farage’s attacks, he said: “Why not focus on Starmer and the country, instead of pushing false and petty crap?”
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