Danny Kruger is the MP for East Wiltshire.
Our Party is in crisis. Our country faces deep challenges which Labour will compound. And the world is growing increasingly dangerous and unstable.
Europe, the Middle East, and Asia are all at war or on the brink of war. The US, the protector of global peace for more than a century, is now profoundly divided and distracted. Technology and mass migration are fundamentally altering our economies and societies.
The UK has still not recovered from the global financial crisis or more generally from the effects of Labour’s last term of office, when the borders were opened and the basis of government was utterly altered by human rights legislation.
In Government, we fumbled the responsibility presented by the rolling crises of the times.
We lost the general election not because we were too left-wing or too right-wing – but because we failed to be a government that delivered for the public. We failed to heed the mandate of Brexit to restore the state to the people, and make a country that works for families, businesses, and communities.
Each candidate for leader brings something vital to the monumental task we have ahead of us. The fearlessness of Kemi Badenoch, the thoughtfulness of Tom Tugendhat, the warmth of James Cleverly, the conviction of Priti Patel, and the experience of Mel Stride – all are valuable and all are needed.
But given the scale of the crisis we and the wider world face, something more is needed: seriousness.
This is why I back Robert Jenrick over the other candidates for leader. He is a serious man for a serious moment.
Alone amongst the candidates, he has both a proven record on the key issues affecting the country and also the ability to deliver the change that is needed.
On policy, the two principal challenges we face as a country are the effects of mass migration and the generational unfairness encapsulated in the housing system. On both issues Jenrick has led courageously, fighting vested interests – especially within government – to do what was needed.
On housing, he got housebuilding starts to their highest level since 1987. On migration, he achieved the biggest fall in legal migration in the modern era – apparent now, in a gift to the new Government. But because he couldn’t persuade his colleagues to do what was needed to stop the boatloads of illegal migrants, he resigned from the Government on a point of principle.
If Jenrick’s advice to Rishi Sunak on the small boats had been heeded I am convinced that many of the colleagues we lost this year would still be in Parliament. The uncomfortable fact is that all other candidates supported the failed policy on which, more than any other issue, we lost the election.
Jenrick also has the ability and the temperament for the job. Uniquely he has served under each of the last five Conservative Prime Ministers. His instincts are conciliatory and his manner is professional. He was radicalised, as he explains it, by his experience at the Home Office in the last Parliament, when he saw how profoundly broken this key instrument of the British state is.
But at all times, even when he could no longer serve in a Government whose principal policy he disagreed with, he behaved courteously and maintained good relations with ministers and backbenchers alike.
These qualities are evident in the breadth of support he has won from MPs so far, the professionalism of his campaign, and the hard work he is putting into this fight.
I fear that, rather than a serious leader for a serious moment, we end up with a superficially attractive leader who may say the right things but who lacks the grit and vision – that combination of professionalism and clarity of purpose – which our country and party so badly needs.
The times are too serious for false comforts.
The unity we want can only be achieved by a leader with a record of successful delivery; who has a coherent diagnosis of the challenges we face and the intellect and resolve to meet them; who can work with colleagues from all wings of the Party; and who can win back voters we lost both to Reform and the Lib Dems, as well as hold our respectable centre. Robert Jenrick is that leader.
Danny Kruger is the MP for East Wiltshire.
Our Party is in crisis. Our country faces deep challenges which Labour will compound. And the world is growing increasingly dangerous and unstable.
Europe, the Middle East, and Asia are all at war or on the brink of war. The US, the protector of global peace for more than a century, is now profoundly divided and distracted. Technology and mass migration are fundamentally altering our economies and societies.
The UK has still not recovered from the global financial crisis or more generally from the effects of Labour’s last term of office, when the borders were opened and the basis of government was utterly altered by human rights legislation.
In Government, we fumbled the responsibility presented by the rolling crises of the times.
We lost the general election not because we were too left-wing or too right-wing – but because we failed to be a government that delivered for the public. We failed to heed the mandate of Brexit to restore the state to the people, and make a country that works for families, businesses, and communities.
Each candidate for leader brings something vital to the monumental task we have ahead of us. The fearlessness of Kemi Badenoch, the thoughtfulness of Tom Tugendhat, the warmth of James Cleverly, the conviction of Priti Patel, and the experience of Mel Stride – all are valuable and all are needed.
But given the scale of the crisis we and the wider world face, something more is needed: seriousness.
This is why I back Robert Jenrick over the other candidates for leader. He is a serious man for a serious moment.
Alone amongst the candidates, he has both a proven record on the key issues affecting the country and also the ability to deliver the change that is needed.
On policy, the two principal challenges we face as a country are the effects of mass migration and the generational unfairness encapsulated in the housing system. On both issues Jenrick has led courageously, fighting vested interests – especially within government – to do what was needed.
On housing, he got housebuilding starts to their highest level since 1987. On migration, he achieved the biggest fall in legal migration in the modern era – apparent now, in a gift to the new Government. But because he couldn’t persuade his colleagues to do what was needed to stop the boatloads of illegal migrants, he resigned from the Government on a point of principle.
If Jenrick’s advice to Rishi Sunak on the small boats had been heeded I am convinced that many of the colleagues we lost this year would still be in Parliament. The uncomfortable fact is that all other candidates supported the failed policy on which, more than any other issue, we lost the election.
Jenrick also has the ability and the temperament for the job. Uniquely he has served under each of the last five Conservative Prime Ministers. His instincts are conciliatory and his manner is professional. He was radicalised, as he explains it, by his experience at the Home Office in the last Parliament, when he saw how profoundly broken this key instrument of the British state is.
But at all times, even when he could no longer serve in a Government whose principal policy he disagreed with, he behaved courteously and maintained good relations with ministers and backbenchers alike.
These qualities are evident in the breadth of support he has won from MPs so far, the professionalism of his campaign, and the hard work he is putting into this fight.
I fear that, rather than a serious leader for a serious moment, we end up with a superficially attractive leader who may say the right things but who lacks the grit and vision – that combination of professionalism and clarity of purpose – which our country and party so badly needs.
The times are too serious for false comforts.
The unity we want can only be achieved by a leader with a record of successful delivery; who has a coherent diagnosis of the challenges we face and the intellect and resolve to meet them; who can work with colleagues from all wings of the Party; and who can win back voters we lost both to Reform and the Lib Dems, as well as hold our respectable centre. Robert Jenrick is that leader.