Could former Wolverhampton schoolboy become next Tory leader?

And today Robert Jenrick has added his name to the list of men and women who hope one day to lead the Conservative Party back into power.

Mr Jenrick is now MP for Newark in the East Midlands, but his roots are very firmly on this side of the region.

Born in Wolverhampton, he grew up in the city as well as in Shifnal and near Ludlow in Shropshire. He attended Wolverhampton Grammar School before going on to Cambridge.

He said his party has “a mountain to climb” as he launched his bid to become the next Tory leader.

And he said the Tories had to “show the country we know where we went wrong” to win the next election.

The former immigration minister is one of six candidates battling it out to replace Rishi Sunak as the Conservative Party seeks to rebuild after its worst-ever General Election result.

He told Conservative members at his launch rally in the East Midlands that the party has to undergo serious changes to regain voters’ trust.

He said: “They say Sir Keir Starmer is guaranteed a decade in Downing Street.

“We have a mountain to climb.

“Trust is hard fought, but easily lost. It can’t be restored overnight.

“But if the party learns the hard lessons, listens to the country and shows the party has changed, if we show the country that we have listened, if we show the country we know where we went wrong and have learned our lessons, if we show that we understand the scale of the challenges this country faces and are capable of delivering for Britain again, if we show that we have come together, a broad church, but united by a common creed, above all, if we show that we have changed, I know we can win again.

“Not in two terms. Not in a decade. But at the next general election.”

Mr Jenrick, who was nicknamed ‘Robert Generic’ when first elected to the Commons in 2014, will campaign on a tough stance of cutting immigration and pulling out of the European Convention on Human Rights.

In a campaign video this week, he said Mr Sunak’s party had been “unable or unwilling” to do what was required to reduce the number of people coming to the UK.

Hundreds of thousands of people “we didn’t need” had arrived legally while “dangerous” immigrants could not be deported, he said.

Mr Jenrick resigned from Mr Sunak’s government last year, claiming that the plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda did not go far enough.

“I believe that anyone who comes here illegally must be deported within days,” he said in his pitch to replace Mr Sunak.

Bookmakers have Mr Jenrick as second favourite in the race behind shadow communities secretary Kemi Badenoch.

The two rivals from the right of the party are up against shadow work and pensions secretary Mel Stride, shadow security minister Tom Tugendhat, shadow home secretary James Cleverly and former home secretary Dame Priti Patel – with the winner named on November 2.

The field will be whittled down to four in time for the Tory conference in Birmingham in the autumn before MPs vote for a final two who will face a ballot of Conservative members.

Mr Jenrick got into hot water during the Covid pandemic for travelling to Shropshire to see his parents when restrictions were in place. He said he was delivering medicines and other essential items.

He was appointed by Boris Johnson in 2019 to help ‘level up’ the West Midlands, saying at the time: “The continued success of the Midlands is not just personal to me, it is absolutely vital to our mission to level up our regions.”

He later took on the role of Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, which came with it an office in the centre of Wolverhampton.

The party faces the twin challenges of responding to the threat from Nigel Farage’s Reform UK on the right, as well as winning back former heartlands in southern England which shifted to the Liberal Democrats.

Suella Braverman, who bowed out of the race last week, warned the Tories have “no chance of winning the next general election” as long as Mr Farage’s outfit “is a viable alternative”.

The former home secretary denied speculation she might defect unless she was “driven out to Reform by my colleagues”.

Arguing that Tory-to-Reform defector Lee Anderson “should be a Conservative MP”, Ms Braverman told GB News: “We should not be hounding out Conservatives, right-wingers, Eurosceptics, people who want to stand up for our flag and our faith as if they are somehow swivel-eyed loons.”

She cautioned any Tory leader against “complacency” over the threat from the right, saying “Reform can do better” and “young people are voting more for Reform than they are for the Conservatives”.