A warning from history ‘Pound Shop Powell’ Robert Jenrick as Tory leadership contender
The media is bad at history, even very recent history. Robert Jenrick resigned as a Tory Minister in 2023. In December 2023 he spoke to Laura Kuenssberg on her Sunday morning show and claimed that migrants don’t integrate into British society. He gave as an example the thousands who have marched calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Jenrick’s not very good pound shop Enoch Powell act once backed up Suella Braverman who was expected to make a leadership move as the Tories lost the General Election. In reality Jenrick recruited Braverman’s supporters and she had to bow out.
Jenrick’s lurch to the right isnt a recent thing.
When he was Communities Minister in 2021 Jenrick has announced in the Sunday Telegraph that he planned to make any changes to historic statues and monuments subject to planning laws.
In doing so Jenrick used Trumpian language. Anti-racist protesters were a ‘baying mob’ while democratically elected local councillors were a ‘cultural committee’ of town hall militants and woke worthies”. If we were to lower ourselves to Jenrick’s level what he was actually proposing was to over ride local democratic processes with decisions by a coterie of racist Tory Ministers.
Jenrick is part of a Tory Great Moving Right Show and it could end up moving very far right indeed based on present performance. His Islamophobic comments on Sky News on 7th August reflecting a CV that underlines an unpleasant and highly contentious past record
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