
RISING star of the Tory right Robert Jenrick rallied the Tory conference with a call to establish a “new order” in Britain.
The shadow justice secretary and new-minted demagogue told Conservative representatives that “the end of the old order is in sight.
“A new one is coming because the British people are fighting back and there’s absolutely nothing that Labour can do to stop them.
“Let’s build this new order. Let’s take our country back,” he said to a hall experiencing enthusiasm for the first time in the course of the conference.
Mr Jenrick’s speech came as he was revealed to have complained to a Tory gathering earlier this year that he did not see enough “white faces” during a visit to the Handsworth district of Birmingham, a neighbourhood he also described as a “slum.”
His remarks were widely condemned, including by former Tory West Midlands Mayor Andy Street, who dubbed them “wrong.”
Mr Street added that Handsworth “is actually a very integrated place. If you go along the main streets there, you will see Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims, Christians, a lot of them of African and Caribbean origin, and of course, white people as well. Brilliant civic society.”
The independent MP for the area, Ayoub Khan, said: “The claims made by the shadow justice secretary are not only wildly false but also incredibly irresponsible.
“He has misrepresented a storied and diverse community to fit his culture-warrior narrative filled with far-right cliches.”
And Labour Party chair Anna Turley said the comments “clearly cross a red line.”
However, they are unlikely to damage his prospects in the Tory Party, where polls show him to be the members’ favourite to replace the hapless Kemi Badenoch, who half of Conservatives want gone.
Mr Jenrick’s speech was marked by curiosities — he brandished a judge’s wig for no very good reason — and by the use of phrases which could appear uncontentious but flirt with the rhetoric of fascism or at least Trumpism.
He declared he was a man of “justice and action” and warned apropos of military veterans that they were “the last generation’s heroes betrayed by this generation’s sellouts.”
He also repeatedly invoked a coming “new order,” which was also the term used by the Nazis to describe the regime they wanted to impose across Europe during the second world war.
“The old order is collapsing. For too long the chattering classes drowned out the voice of the people. Our job is to make sure that the people’s will prevails,” he said.
Mr Jenrick also sought to summon up the spirits of an idealised Britain, referencing pubs, animals, jury trials, the royal family, women’s rugby, cricket and, of course, “a military that has defeated every force on the planet,” the last being manifestly untrue.
And he slammed Attorney-General Lord Hermer as a “useful idiot” who always sided with Britain’s enemies.
Warm-up act shadow home secretary Chris Philp pledged “negative net migration” and a tripling of stop-and-search by the police if the Tories return to office.