Robert Jenrick, the former immigration minister who quit Rishi Sunak’s cabinet over the prime minister’s failure to take a tougher approach to immigration, has entered the race to become Conservative leader.
The Tory MP’s campaign manager, Danny Kruger, said he was best placed to win back voters who deserted the party for Reform at the general election. He is the third MP, after James Cleverly and Tom Tugendhat, to join the contest.
Jenrick emerged as a frontrunner to succeed Sunak in a poll of party members this week, ahead of rightwing rivals Kemi Badenoch, Priti Patel and Suella Braverman, who are all expected to run.
Cleverly, the former home secretary, was the first candidate to throw his hat into the ring, arguing he was “best placed” to unite the Tories and urging hard right colleagues against “sacrificing pragmatic government in the national interest on the altar of ideological purity”.
Tugendhat, a one nation MP who was the former security minister, joined the race on Wednesday, saying he would be willing to leave the European convention on human rights in a pitch to the right.
Danny Kruger, Jenrick’s campaign manager, said he was submitting Jenrick’s nomination papers on Thursday.
“To have any path back to government we must win back those voters we have lost – across the board but particularly to Reform. At the same time we have to bring our party together, united behind one set of coherent Conservative principles,” he said.
“The British people need to be convinced that we are the most responsible and competent party of government for us to have any chance of winning in 2029, especially when we know Labour are set to fail on so many important issues for our country.
“Rob Jenrick will do that. He has the energy, temperament and policy agenda to take on our rivals and lead us back to power in five years.”
Jenrick, 42, a former communities secretary who came under pressure to quit after becoming mired in a planning row, is expected to officially launch his leadership campaign in the East Midlands next week.
The 1922 Committee of backbench Tory MPs has drawn up plans for a long leadership contest under which the final four candidates will battle it out at Tory conference before the winner is announced on 2 November.
The party’s recent history has shown that the Tory grassroots tend to opt for the most rightwing candidate. In the last two leadership contests, Boris Johnson beat Jeremy Hunt and Liz Truss beat Sunak, who later became prime minister without a full contest.
