Tackling immigration is key to solving the housing crisis
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Robert Jenrick has lost four stone but believes he has found a path to salvation for the Conservative Party.
He wants the Tories to copy their Canadian sister party in winning back young voters by linking housing to migration. Only by drastically limiting numbers arriving can you hope to build enough homes for those already here, he claims.
Is that a leadership pitch? âMy interest at the moment is only in making and trying to win these arguments.â He has the good grace to laugh when told itâs the words âat the momentâ that carry the greatest significance in that reply.
The Conservative MP for Newark has become a hate figure for some on the left following his decision to order the removal of Mickey Mouse murals at a reception centre for migrant children. He is also regarded with suspicion by some in his own party who think him an opportunist.
He voted Remain but then backed Boris Johnson for the Tory leadership. Johnson sacked him as housing secretary after a series of controversies. He was brought back into government by Rishi Sunak but quit as immigration minister last December because he thought that the Rwanda scheme didnât go far enough.
Speaking to i on the morning that the election is called, Jenrick doesnât hold back in criticising the policy that Sunak wants to make the key dividing line for the next six weeks.
âOne of the things Iâve learned having been all over the world analyzing the issue of illegal migration is that half measures donât work,â he says.
âIf hundreds of migrants were detained immediately upon arrival, swiftly processed and sent to Rwanda, there is reason to believe that that would begin to create the deterrent effect that we require.
âThe problem with the scheme that the Prime Minister has chosen to implement is that few if any migrants will be detained immediately upon arrival.
âThe first cohorts that he is choosing to consider for Rwanda are individuals whoâve been in the UK for many years. And secondly, they will be able to make a myriad of individual claims that will delay and I suspect frustrate their removal.
âSo I think that that version of the Rwanda policy is very unlikely to create the deterrent effect thatâs required.â
(To be fair to Jenrick, he also thinks Starmerâs plans to beef up border security wonât work without an accompanying deterrent policy.)
The 42-year-old former solicitor and auctioneer (he was a director of Christies) speaks quietly but clearly. He may lack Nigel Farageâs folksy demeanor but he sings a similar tune both on legal and illegal migration.
Politicians, he says, donât get it. Whether for fear of being labelled âracist or extremeâ or because their day to day lives are unaffected those at Westminster consistently ignore votersâ wishes.
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âI think that a lot of politicians are insulated from the costs of legal migration. Because politicians are rarely the people who are at the back of the queue for social housing.
âTheyâre rarely the people whose wages have been undercut by their employers importing foreign labor rather than investing in their own skills and career prospects. Theyâre rarely people who are living in communities at the sharp end of community tensions.â
He says his experiences as housing minister, as a health minister and then at the Home Office convinced him that in each area migration was playing a malign role.
âOf the 1.1 million homes shortage that we have, between 80 and 90 percent of that deficit is as a result of legal migration,â he claims
âYouâd have to be building a new home every five minutes, night and day, 365 days a year, merely to accommodate the people who came into the country legally last year. Thatâs clearly impossible.â
He has called the small boats issue a ânational security crisisâ â does he think that the security services risk being overwhelmed by the need to assess and where necessary monitor illegal arrivals?
âI think itâs a challenge for them. You have a very large number of people coming into the country about whom we know little â a significant proportion of them are coming from countries which donât share Western values.
âAnd once they enter the UK, in many cases, theyâre being housed for prolonged periods of time in the types of settings, which in the past have been amenable to radicalization.â
He wants Donald Trump to win the US election (âheâs right on migrationââ) and is a big fan of potential vice-president Greg Abbott the Republican governor of Texas from whom he says he has drawn inspiration on measures to make illegal crossing more difficult.
Jenrick also thinks the Canadian Conservatives âprovide a blueprint to our partyâ.
âThey have made a national argument for building more homes and helping more young people on to the housing ladder, which has succeeded in resonating with people of all ages, and appears to be setting on a path back to power whenever the election comes.
âTheyâve also made the connection between immigration and the housing crisis in a very reasonable and sensible way, which has persuaded younger people that they should be concerned about the level of legal migration in Canada.â
Thatâs not a leadership pitch â âat the momentâ.