Robert Jenrick has called for asylum seekers arriving in the UK to be detained in camps with conditions resembling “rudimentary prisons,” a sharp escalation in the immigration debate that puts him to the right of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.
In an interview with The Spectator, the shadow justice secretary argued that Britain needs what he called “a decade of net emigration” to ease pressure on public services and housing. “The country now needs breathing space after this period of mad migration,” he said.
Outflanking Reform
Jenrick welcomed parts of Reform’s immigration plan but said their proposals for housing asylum seekers did not go far enough. “They should be detained in camps. The facilities will need to be rudimentary prisons, not holiday camps,” he said, rejecting Reform’s idea of fenced-off cabins.
He also criticised Farage’s party for suggesting deportations should mainly target undocumented men, warning that such an approach would allow people-smuggling gangs to exploit women and children and encourage young men to claim they were underage.
Personal Turning Points
Jenrick pointed to experiences he says hardened his views on migration. He recalled meeting a mother in Epping who placed heavy boots outside her home to make it seem like a man lived there, hoping to deter asylum seekers from approaching. Another moment, he said, came during a visit to Dover where he claimed migrants walked into residents’ gardens and kitchens to steal food.
“These moments convinced me Westminster was completely out of touch,” he told the magazine.
Legal vs Illegal Migration
While much of the focus in recent years has been on small-boat crossings, Jenrick argued that legal migration has been just as damaging because of the sheer volume of people entering the UK. He said the “age of being open to low-wage, low-skilled workers and their dependents has come to an end.”
He suggested the UK should return to a period of net emigration, as seen between the 1960s and 1980s, and stressed that Britain should remain open only to “coders, doctors and entrepreneurs.”
Political Positioning
His remarks come just before the Conservative Party conference, where cabinet minister Kemi Badenoch is expected to unveil her own immigration plan. Jenrick insisted he supported her approach, but his intervention has fuelled speculation he is positioning himself for a future leadership bid.
He did not shy away from criticising his colleagues, calling the points-based immigration system introduced under Priti Patel during Boris Johnson’s premiership “the worst policy mistake in my lifetime.
Jenrick’s comments mark one of the toughest positions yet from a senior Conservative on immigration, signalling an attempt to push his party further to the right as Reform gains ground. With the Tory conference days away, immigration is set to dominate the debate over the party’s future direction.
