The Reform UK MP has waded into a row with the Conservatives over what it means to be English, suggesting “millions” of people living in Britain don’t qualify.
Robert Jenrick hit back at Kemi Badenoch’s criticism of Reform over identity politics (Image: Getty)
Robert Jenrick has waded into an identity row between the Conservatives and Reform UK, suggesting “millions and millions” of people in England are not “culturally or ethnically” English. Kemi Badenoch launched an attack on Nigel Farage’s party in her conference speech, accusing it of “questioning people’s English identity” and “taking us backwards”.
She hit out at her former colleague Suella Braverman, who suggested that only white people can be English in a recent appearance on the BBC‘s Question Time programme, accusing Reform of wanting to “debate whether my mixed-race children are English”.
Ms Braverman said non-white people born in the UK could be British, but not English, earlier this month. Mr Jenrick, treasury spokesperson for Reform, hit back at the Tory leader, insisting the debate over English identity is “perfectly normal”, as per the Daily Mail.
He said: “We’ve ended up in a country where there are millions and millions of people who have a British passport in their bedroom drawer, but who are not culturally British by my standards, are not culturally English either, and are not ethnically English as well. And that is a world away from the country as it was 50 years ago, certainly 100 years ago.”
Mr Jenrick told former GB News presenter Dan Wootton that the English cultural identity requires someone to be “fully embracing of our history, our heritage, our language, our culture, our norms and our manners”, alongside holding a British passport. “Holding a passport does not mean that you are culturally English or British,” he said. “And neither does it mean that you’re ethnically English either.”
Kemi Badenoch said Reform voters ‘deserve better’ in her conference speech (Image: Getty)
Mr Jenrick was heavily criticised last year, when he was a Conservative MP, for complaining of not seeing “another white face” in an area of Birmingham he visited. He insisted the comments were about the failure of community cohesion and “proper integration”.
During her conference speech, Ms Badenoch apologised to Reform voters and said they deserved better. “Many of them are our people,” she said. “We let them down and we want them to come back home. They deserve better than Reform politicians.”
The Reform treasury spokesperson also appeared to rule out a pact with the Conservatives on Friday. He told reporters: “Doing a deal with the Tory party is like being handcuffed to a zombie. It’s not something we’re interested in, trust me.”
Despite Mr Jenrick’s willingness to push back on the comments, other members of Reform appeared less comfortable wading into the identity debate. Deputy leader Richard Tice refused to be drawn on whether he agreed with Ms Badenoch’s comments during a Times Radio interview on Wednesday.
“This whole Englishness debate is something we just haven’t got time for,” he said. “I’m just not talking about it. I think it’s a complete waste of time.”