Jenrick attacks ECHR and ‘crazy’ interim net zero targets in pitch to Tory conference – UK politics live | Politics

The Kemi Badenoch video stresses how disillusioned people are with politics generally.

She is on stage now, and she starts:

It is time to tell the truth, the truth about our party, the truth about our politics, the truth about our future.

For too long, politicians have been scared of the truth. For too long, politicians have hidden behind spin.

For too long, politicians have been scared of the truth for too long.

Politicians have hidden behind spin for too long. Politicians have told the public what they wanted to hear and then done their own thing.

Well, I say enough.

Badenoch says she addressed the Tory conference seven years ago (when she introdued Theresa May before her conference speech). She goes on:

But I am no longer a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed back bencher.

I am a veteran of four government departments and a former cabinet minister.

I have seen the system from the inside. Ladies and gentlemen, the system is broken.

Jenrick says the Tories must “take a stand on net zero”.

He says he does not oppose the principle of net zero, but he does oppose “the crazy interim binding targets put into law by Gordon Brown”.

Jenrick restates his call for the UK to leave the European convention on human rights so it can end illegal migration.

We must take a stand to secure our borders. We must secure our borders.

120,000 people have entered our country on small boats on our watch. 99% of them are still here, costing us billions.

Frankly, there is no future for this party unless we take a stand to answer this problem, and the way to do that we all know is to detain and swiftly deport everyone who comes into our country illegally.

But we will never do that .. unless we leave the European convention on human rights.

Jenrick says he wants “a new great Reform Act, one that leaves the ECHR, repeals Tony Blair’s Human Rights Act and writes a British Bill of Rights”. He goes on:

And the age of mass migration that must end too. It’s not making us any richer, it’s putting immense pressure on our housing, our hospitals, our roads, and if we’re honest with ourselves, the sheer scale and the lack of integration is sapping at our culture and our national cohesion.

If I am your leader, I will fight for the effective freeze in net migration our country needs. And this time, we will cast it in iron. We will do it with a vote in Parliament so that each and every one of us can look the British public in the eye and say, we mean it.

We’re going to do it this time and and if we do that, we give our country the effective breathing space that we need.

Will we be open to the best and the brightest? Yes, absolutely. Will we be open to the world and its wife and all their extended family? No, not anymore, and under my conservative party, never, ever again.

Jenrick says the Tories must be honest about their failings.

I will be painfully honest about our failings. We failed to deliver the strong NHS, the strong economy and, yes, the strong border that we promised friends, we must never fail our people again.

And the party must change, he says.

And the truth is this, if we are going to change this party to restore the trust and the confidence of the people, if we are going to tackle together the immense challenges our country faces, we are going to have to build something new – a new conservative party

That is what I call for today – a new Conservative party, nothing less than that, built on the rock of our proudest traditions and noblest values, but a new Conservative party.

Jenrick carries on the attack on Labour.

Where’s the vision, where’s the boldness? The country just voted for change, and all we’ve got is more managed decline.

Sir Keir Starmer will take the knee, but he will never take a stand.

He doesn’t even take a stand. He doesn’t even take a stand at the football anymore …

And what about the cabinet?

Well, Rachel Reeves, as wooden as Pinocchio, and only barely more honest.

And then we’ve got Ed Miliband, Whoever tells you the grown ups are back in charge. Look at Ed Miliband, a Wallace missing his Gromit.

Jenrick descibes who he is in politics for.

I am in politics for the millions of people in our country just like [his parents], devoted citizens, good neighbors, the people who get up early in the morning to put food on the table for their families, yes, the people who start small businesses around their kitchen tables, the people for whom there is no pressure group pressing their case, no lobby demanding their so called rights.

So let me tell you, if I am your leader, the pressure group for Britain’s hard working majority will be us, the Conservative party.

Robert Jenrick starts by saying it is “good to be back”. He is a Midlands man, and he grew up in Wolverhampton.

He says 50 years ago his parents came to Birmingham. His dad got a job at an iron foundary.

It has made the cannon for Wellington’s army, he says.

(Referencing Napoleon as the enemy is very Brexit.)

He says the Tories decided to change in 1974. They chose to change their leadership.

(Er – the leadership election that Margaret Thatcher won was actually in 1975.)

He says the Tories reversed Britain’s decline under Thatcher. He says she is one of his heroines.

They are now showing a video about Robert Jenrick.

It starts with footage featuring Boris Johnson and Liz Truss quite prominently (quite a bold move). It is a reminder of Brexit.

And it ends showing Jenrick talking to a voter who says he will return to the party if Jenrick is leader.

Cleverly is now on his peroration.

So it’s in our hands, yours and mine, to turn this around, and we can because the facts of life, the simple desire to aspire and achieve, to provide safety and security for your family, to own a home, to build a life and give your children a better tomorrow than today – these are conservative facts.

We may have lost our way, but it’s time to get back on track, because history shows that while we have no right to govern, we govern where we get it right.

So let’s unite. Let’s rebuild this party of ours.

Cleverly says he is running, not because he wants to be someone, but because he wants to do something.

So if you want a winner, choose one, choose someone who can deliver results, who can communicate effectively and who campaigns relentlessly.

Choose someone who you know and who is tested and who doesn’t hide from the media.

Choose someone who is not afraid of the public, but is popular with the public, and choose the candidate who Starmer, Farage and Davey fear the most, because I will not accept the status quo.

I will not accept defeatism, and I will not accept defeat.

Cleverly also talks about his time as home secretary, saying again he introduced controls that brought down immigration.

Because leadership is about things like making the tough decisions when you get that ugly phone call in the middle of the night about keeping this country safe, because I’ve been there, because I know in detail what the government should be doing right now. I know in detail how they’re failing.

Now is not the time for an apprentice.

There is an echo of Gordon Brown “now is not the time for a novice” speech to the Labour conference in 2008 (a jibe at both David Cameron and David Miliband).