Ben Riley-Smith’s Telegraph profile of Robert Jenrick does the heavy lifting of rebranding a dull ex-minister as a bold “radical thinker.” But what it really showcases is the Tory Party’s drift into authoritarian populism. Jenrick dresses it in the language of “depoliticisation” and “honesty.” What he’s actually selling is an assault on judicial independence and a programme of mass expulsions. Riley-Smith isn’t interrogating Jenrick; he’s workshopping his pitch to Farage’s voters.
The Myth of the ‘Activist Judge’
Jenrick insists that “activist” judges are undermining the neutrality of the courts. It’s a neat inversion. The only way to enforce his version of “neutrality” is by political control. Making judges fireable if they cross the government line. In other words, to purge the judiciary of politics, Jenrick must inject it with politics. It’s the Orbán manoeuvre: accuse the courts of bias, then remake them as an arm of executive power.
“There’s no point extricating ourselves from activist judges in Strasbourg only to be beholden to activist judges here.”
This is not depoliticisation; it is politicisation, in the name of state sovereignty. If a government can sack judges for rulings it dislikes, there is no rule of law left, only the rule of ministers.
Europe, Strasbourg, and the Scapegoat
The ECHR is not really about boats in the Channel. It’s about the minimal legal protections that stop governments deporting entire categories of people en masse. By leaving the ECHR, Jenrick hopes to strip away those obstacles, clearing the path for his fantasy of expulsion: “every single illegal migrant in this country” gone. That language, is not about policy. It is about theatre. A strongman pose.
“We’re going to have to marshal all the resources of the British state.”
To what end? To hunt down tens of thousands of people whose only crime is trying to live here. The Tory base is promised an impossible cleansing operation. The real result will be more raids, more detentions, more cruelty. While the material causes of social crisis, austerity and financialisation, remain untouched.
Trump, Farage, Jenrick
The article asks if Jenrick sounds “a bit Trumpian,” as though that were a curiosity, not the point. Jenrick himself praises Trump for securing the border, signalling that Britain should follow suit. The shadow justice secretary is also careful to flatter Nigel Farage: Reform voters are “angry,” their anger “legitimate,” and Jenrick “shares” it.
“Nigel Farage and Reform speak for millions of people. I share that anger and frustration.”
This is not hedging. It is the Tory Party’s survival instinct: mimic Farage, absorb his voters, borrow his rhetoric. Jenrick’s radicalism is the radicalism of the copycat, a party trailing behind the far right and pretending it is leading.
Radical in Name Only
The Telegraph keeps reaching for the word “radical.” Jenrick’s father’s white van, his diet drugs, his De Gaulle biography, his social media videos. Are all dressed up as signs of a man with a new way of thinking. But deregulation, migrant scapegoating, and attacks on courts are not new. They are the oldest moves in the authoritarian playbook: Orbán purging Hungarian courts, Erdoğan turning judges into servants of the state, Trump filling benches with loyalists, Meloni tightening immigration law, Netanyahu hollowing out judicial checks. Jenrick isn’t inventing anything new. He’s just late to the party.
The radicalism here lies only in the willingness to say the quiet part out loud: that rights must be stripped, judges purged, and deportations escalated. Radical not in vision, but in shamelessness.
The Real Politics at Work
The missing context is the real story. Housing, wages, health, education—none of these crises are caused by asylum seekers or “activist judges.” They are caused by a political economy Jenrick himself once loyally served. Austerity. Financialisation. The demolition of the welfare state.
To blame migrants for austerity is an authoritarian con. To blame judges for Tory failures is to prepare the ground for repression. Jenrick’s “radical honesty” is just the Tory Party’s latest mask.
The Telegraph has written him a calling card, not a critique. If you’re reading this blog and starting to get the feeling I don’t like Robert Jenrick, you would be correct
