2 months ago
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PA Media
The MP for Newark has made it through to the final two of the Conservative leadership contest along with Essex MP Kemi Badenoch - but do the locals think Robert Jenrick is the right person for the job?
“We need to get it right this time”, Conservative activist Jenni Oliver tells me, as she takes a sip from her cappuccino.
Tory members like Ms Oliver have grown accustomed to choosing prime ministers, but now they’re selecting the leader of the opposition.
“We voted Liz Truss in. That was a big mistake as far as I was concerned. Boris Johnson? No.”
“For me, that’s where the Conservatives lost it.”
The activists I am meeting for a coffee in the Nottinghamshire market town of Newark have real skin in the game this time.
Unsurprisingly, members of Jenrick’s local Conservative association all believe he is the best person to revive the party’s fortunes.
Tony Roberts, the president of the association, argues that the former cabinet minister has “really matured” as a politician.
Seen initially as an ally of David Cameron on the more "moderate" wing of the party when he became an MP in 2014, Jenrick has shifted to the right after quitting as immigration minster last year.
They accept that while his views might have changed over the years, his Conservative “values” are the same.
Tories here have fond memories of knocking on doors for Jenrick when he was first elected in a by-election a decade ago.
Sue Saddington, a local councillor, recalls having his campaign team over to her house for shepherd’s pie.
Now she is salivating again at the prospect of him becoming leader.
The local area "will really wake up to the fact that they have somebody of stature now in Newark," she said.
“I think Newark will absolutely rejoice to it.”
It is a bold claim in a seat where more than 60% of voters backed other candidates in the July general election.
Jenrick’s majority was slashed from 22,000 to 3,500, with both Labour and Reform UK making huge gains at the election
He is now the only Conservative MP anywhere in Nottinghamshire or neighbouring Derbyshire.
That result is described as a mere “blip” by Mr Roberts.
His more immediate concern is the limited options given to members in the leadership election.
“We’ve got just two, right-wing candidates and I would have liked the membership to have a wider choice," he said.
"That’s why going down to two was a mistake, it should have been at least three."
The timetable of the election race is also mistake.
Unless a candidate drops out, the result will be announced after the Budget - meaning Rishi Sunak, not his successor, will respond to Chancellor Rachel Reeves.
And what of the bookies’ favourite to be next Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch?
Both Ms Saddington and and Mr Toberts stress the importance of the party uniting behind whoever wins.
But Ms Oliver is not convinced.
“Personally, I think it’ll be a few months - it could be another Liz Truss," she said.
