Senior Conservative MP Robert Jenrick has been accused of fuelling division after defending comments that he “didn’t see another white face” during a visit to Birmingham, insisting the area “did look like a slum”.
The remarks, reportedly made during a visit to Handsworth in March, have sparked a race row that has overshadowed his speech at the Conservative Party Conference. During that address, the former immigration minister launched a fierce attack on the judiciary, accusing some judges of “fighting to keep illegal migrants in the UK”.
Speaking on The Telegraph’s Daily T podcast, Mr Jenrick said there were “pockets” of British towns and cities where communities live separately, claiming that people should not be afraid to discuss this issue out of a “misplaced fear of being called racist”.
He added: “It did look like a slum. I didn’t see a mix of people on the streets. It was an observation.”
The MP insisted he would “not shy away” from raising concerns about what he described as a lack of integration in some areas. Party leader Kemi Badenoch defended him, saying there was “nothing wrong” with making such an observation. “In and of itself, it’s a factual statement,” she said. “I completely disagree with those calling it racist.”
However, the comments have been widely condemned by local leaders and faith figures. Richard Parker, Labour’s Mayor of the West Midlands, said: “I do [think it was racist]. Because he’s set out intentionally to draw on a particular issue – people’s colour – to identify the point he wanted to make. No other mainstream politician in the West Midlands would seek to do that explicitly and with the intent that he did.”
The Bishop of Birmingham, the Right Reverend Michael Volland, said he was “dismayed and disappointed” by the remarks. In a letter to Mr Jenrick, he wrote: “Comments like those you have made have the potential to generate anxiety and stir up division. They can feed into a harmful narrative that provides fuel for a fire of toxic nationalism.”
He urged the MP to consider “how your rhetoric might contribute towards unity rather than stoking division”.
Senior Conservatives have also expressed unease over Mr Jenrick’s remarks and his increasingly hardline stance. One party insider said: “Robert is going to burst with ambition. I’ve told him he needs to wind his neck in and get on with fighting Labour.” Another added: “When it suited him, he was a centrist, and now we have this very right-wing act. People just don’t think it’s authentic.”
Labour’s party chair, Anna Turley, accused Mr Jenrick of judging “his own level of comfort by whether there are other white faces around”, adding: “People of colour should not have to justify their Englishness or their Britishness to Robert Jenrick or anyone else.”
Meanwhile, former Deputy Prime Minister Lord Heseltine used his speech at the same conference in Manchester to issue a stark warning to Ms Badenoch. He urged the party not to “ape Reform UK”, saying: “We must make clear that we will never have any part in the populist extremism of Nigel Farage.” He added that the government’s rhetoric on migration “encourages the worst sort of prejudice” and is “not the Conservative way to rebuild power”.
Mr Jenrick’s conference appearance also included a controversial pledge to overhaul Britain’s justice system. Brandishing a judge’s wig, he accused some members of the judiciary of “open borders activism” and vowed to disband the independent Sentencing Council.
“Dozens of judges have spent their careers fighting to keep illegal migrants in this country,” he said. “They dishonour generations of independent jurists who came before them and undermine the public’s trust in the law itself. Judges who blur the line between adjudication and activism can have no place in our justice system.”
The row over Mr Jenrick’s remarks shows no sign of fading, with critics arguing his words have deepened divisions at a time when the party faces growing pressure over its stance on immigration and national identity.
