Robert Jenrick, that Birmingham slur and a Tory association at war

Eternal Tory leadership hopeful Robert Jenrick’s comments about the Birmingham area of Handsworth being “as close as I’ve come to a slum in this country” and “one of the worst integrated places I’ve ever been” mobilised defenders of the neighbourhood, which takes pride in its large Caribbean and Punjabi Sikh communities.

After the story broke during the Conservative conference, Jenrick came out swinging, insisting his point was about social mixing, not skin colour – despite his own claim to have seen “no white faces” on a recent visit. He further claimed to “know the area well”, and told interviewers how Tory former West Midlands mayor Andy Street had been wrong to criticise him.

Ironic, then, that the segment of Jenrick’s GB News report about flytipping that sparked the row was actually filmed a mile-and-a-half away in neighbouring Aston.

Jenrick’s smoking gun for his “slum” comment was a Facebook video of mounds of rubbish posted by Aston Lib Dem councillor Mumtaz Hussain, used without her permission. Hussain says she has faced an uphill battle getting Birmingham Council to act on dumped items during the city’s bin strike, but has praised litter-picking support from local organisations including Faizul Islam Mosque. She says: “For someone unfamiliar with the local dynamics like Jenrick [talking about] visiting Handsworth, to use footage from Aston… misrepresents the situation”.

Had Jenrick devoted more of his 90-minute expedition to speaking to actual locals – there were interviewees from Sutton Coldfield yet none from Aston in the GB News piece – he might have found keen civic pride.

One resident, a young engineering graduate and teacher of Bengali heritage, told Rats In A Sack that his neighbours needed to “look at our community. Rubbish is a massive issue – it’s our responsibility to keep our area clean, regardless of whether the bins are on strike”. He also worried about “parallel communities”, but added that no-one could tell him that his Birmingham-raised dad was a stranger in the UK.

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Bishop Desmond Jaddoo, a former Aston resident and one-time Conservative member, said it was “white flight” from the inner city, not just minorities moving in, which led to less mixing in some neighbourhoods. He added that he would like Jenrick to take more responsibility: “These areas have gone down since 2010 – that’s the point”.

Meanwhile, who might have leaked Jenrick’s comments, made at Aldridge-Brownhills Conservative Association’s annual dinner in March, to the Guardian during the party’s annual jamboree?

MP Wendy Morton’s constituency association, on the leafier side of Walsall between Birmingham and Lichfield, is riven with allegations of score-settling and bias during candidate interviews for next May’s local elections, leading to the deselection of nine sitting councillors, disproportionately from Asian backgrounds.

One deselected councillor said the controversy did not surprise him. “Jenrick was comfortable making those comments – he was among like-minded people,” he said. “There’s a pattern here. This is an association that tolerates discrimination.”

The councillor claimed Asian councillors had been excluded from photos and only Asian party members had to show ID at a recent AGM. He said he believed the remarks had been leaked by Jenrick’s own team to create attention around his leadership manoeuvrings.

His Conservative colleague Bobby Bains, who is also ineligible to stand next year, called Jenrick’s strategy “a cheap hit to attract voters from other parties”, i.e. Reform. But another deselected councillor, a self-declared Jenrick fan, said they thought their man had been set up by opponents, and that the association must be held to account over a cover-up. All three warned of the drift of Conservatives to Farage’s mob.

The jury is out on the public reaction to Jenrick’s claims. But has the Tory leadership pretender made life unnecessarily difficult for himself at a point when he is believed to be poised to move against Kemi Badenoch? Or are the shadow justice secretary’s grandstanding, offence-causing and tussles with the media now priced in?