By james art At the time she was Home Secretary and he was appointed Immigration Secretary – effectively her deputy – so, many in Westminster believed, he could keep an eye on her because of Rishi Sunak, who distrusted her political ambitions .
Two years on and the man she described as a “centrist Rishi supporter” and Remainer of the “left of the party” has now made pulling out of the convention the centerpiece of his Tory leadership bid in a bold attempt to outdo his rivals from exactly.
This political re-imagining helped him into the final runoff of local community members that would decide the outcome – winning Mrs Braverman’s support in the process.
His supporters said he had become radicalized by his time at the Home Office, concluding that the government could never get control of immigration while the UK remained bound by the rulings of the Strasbourg court.
But others remain unconvinced, seeing instead an ambitious politician willing to say whatever it takes to get to the top of the fat pole.
If successful, it would represent a remarkable turnaround for the former corporate lawyer whose political career was dead in the water just three years ago.
Just two years after being unexpectedly elevated to the cabinet by Boris Johnson, he was unceremoniously sacked, and his short time in high office was marked by scandal and controversy.
However, his shock resignation last year in protest at Mr Sunak’s failure to follow through on plans to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda was seen by some as evidence that he was already laying the groundwork for a leadership bid ahead of the expected defeat of the Tory general election.
Those suspicions were only reinforced when he reappeared after a highly visible ‘glow’ – sporting a sharp new haircut and shedding four stone with the help of the weight loss drug Ozempic.
Throughout, he has been strongly supported in his ambitions by his wife, Michal Berkner, a prestigious Israeli-American lawyer who is seen by some as the driving force behind his leadership bid.
Born in Wolverhampton to working-class parents – his father a gas fitter who set up his own business and his mother a secretary – Robert Jerrick was nevertheless privately educated.
His fees at Wolverhampton Grammar School were paid for by his grandmother with the help of a life insurance payout following his grandfather’s death.
The first in his family to go to university, he won a place to read history at Cambridge before qualifying as a barrister, although friends said his heart was always in politics.
In the 2010 general election, he stood unsuccessfully as a Tory candidate in Labour-held Newcastle under Lyme before finally achieving his dream of becoming an MP in the 2014 Newark by-election, fending off a strong challenge from Ukip.
He first rose to prominence when, as a junior chancellor, he joined Mr Sunak and fellow centrist Oliver Dowden in calling for Mr Johnson to run for the leadership after Theresa May resigns in 2019.
His reward for his early support for the new Prime Minister was a big step into the Cabinet, becoming Communities Secretary aged just 37.
Within months he was embroiled in a political storm after overruling a government planning inspector and approving an application by billionaire Tory donor Richard Desmond to build a £1bn luxury housing estate on the Westferry printing site on the Isle of Dogs in east london.
He subsequently had to admit the decision was illegal after it emerged Mr Desmond had approached him about the scheme when they sat together at a Tory fundraising dinner, even showing him a promotional video of your mobile phone.
He later sent a message to the minister to stress the need for speed as Tower Hamlets council was about to introduce a community infrastructure tax, adding: “We don’t want to give the Marxists loads of doe (sic) for nothing!”
In the event, Mr Jenrick issued his approval 24 hours before the levy came into effect, saving the tycoon more than £40m. Shortly afterwards Mr Desmond donated £12,000 to the Conservatives.
The revelations sparked furious calls for Mr Jenrick to resign, but Mr Johnson – always reluctant to offer political scalps to his opponents or the media – stood behind him.
However, this was not the end of the controversy.
He was heavily criticized for giving his constituency a £25m government grant from a scheme to help ‘deprived’ areas, despite being ranked by the authority as only the 270th most deprived town in England.
During the Covid-19 lockdown, he regularly hosted government press conferences, telling people to stick to the rules and stay at home, only to face accusations that he himself had flouted the regulations by traveling 150 miles from home he was in London to his estate in Herefordshire and then made a further journey of 40 miles to visit his parents.
But the final straw came when his proposals to ease planning laws to speed up the pace of housebuilding had to be abandoned to prevent a revolt by angry Tory MPs.
By now Mr Johnson had had enough and in September 2021 Mr Jenrick was sacked in a cabinet reshuffle. At this point, his future prospects looked bleak.
The arrival of Liz Truss at No 10 the following year, however, offered the start of the road back with his appointment as Secretary of State for Health.
When she was briefly succeeded by his old ally Mr Sunak, he was given the key post of immigration minister.
While the intention behind this may have been to keep Ms Braverman in check, he soon echoed her hard-line rhetoric, warning that “unchecked” migration threatened to “cannibalize” public compassion, prompting accusations of engaging in “dog-whistle politics “.
After Ms Braverman was sacked and the Tories showed no sign of recovery in the polls, Mr Jenrick finally turned decisively on Mr Sunak, with his bombshell decision last December to resign dealing a further blow to his prime ministership.
After the party’s crushing defeat in July’s election, he has not shied away from courting controversy as he tried to woo the right-wing Tories.
Mr Jerrick’s claim at the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham that British forces were killing rather than capturing terrorists because they feared judges in Europe would order their release sparked anger, particularly among military veterans.
Once dismissed as ‘Robert Generic’, it now remains to be seen whether party members are ready to embrace his vision.