(Bloomberg) -- The Conservatives can bounce back from their historic defeat in last month’s general election to win the next UK vote, Robert Jenrick, who’s vying to take over the party’s leadership, is set to tell members on Friday.
Jenrick — the former Home Office minister who UK bookmakers rate as second favorite behind Kemi Badenoch to win the three-month contest — will use a campaign rally in the East Midlands later Friday to attack Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s governing Labour Party as looking “tired” already after just a month in power, according to a statement from his team.
Jenrick will attack a Labour decision to release criminals early and signals this week from Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves that she’s planning to raise taxes in the budget in the autumn, despite saying during the campaign that she had no plans to do so. At the same time, he will concede the Tories need “serious change” after crashing to their worst ever defeat on July 4, losing 250 seats.
“If we show that we have changed, I know we can win again,” Jenrick will say, according to pre-released remarks. “Not in two terms. Not in a decade. But at the next general election.”
Jenrick and Badenoch — the former business secretary — are competing with former ministers Tom Tugendhat, Mel Stride, James Cleverly and Priti Patel to succeed former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak as Tory leader, with a final decision by November.
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