Conservative leadership candidate Robert Jenrick said that he will move Britain’s Israel embassy to Jerusalem if he leads the party at the next general election.

Wearing a hoodie that said, “Hamas are terrorists”, the former home office minister told a reception hosted by Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) on Sunday night that the “next Conservative Party's manifesto would say, ‘build the embassy in Jerusalem’”, and would “recognise Jerusalem as the legitimate capital of the State of Israel”. He added: “If the Foreign Office and the civil servants won’t do it, I’ll build it myself.”

Jenrick also criticised his party’s failure to proscribe the Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) while in government. “It is a shame, a mark of shame, that we did not manage to do that in our 14 years in government. Spurious arguments were raised. The same arguments that were raised with those of us who fought to proscribe in full Hamas and Hezbollah. Well, imagine how foolish we would feel tonight if we had listened to those critics,” he said.

The packed event, attended by over 400 people at the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham, also saw speeches by all remaining candidates in the race to succeed Rishi Sunak as Tory leader.

Former security minister Tom Tugendhat described Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah as a “wonderful day for the people of Israel and the people of Lebanon”.

He continued: “Hassan Nasrallah and his child trafficking, drug dealing, network of war criminals held an entire nation hostage. For too long, has he brought murder to Lebanon, to Syria, to Jordan and, yes, to Israel.”

Former foreign secretary James Cleverly reflected on his visit to Israel in the immediate aftermath of the October 7 atrocities. He told the audience: “When a friend has experienced something as brutal as the atrocities of October 7, we stand shoulder to shoulder with them.”

He went on: “Ambiguity gets put to one side, solidarity comes to the fore and … in defence of democracy, in the defence of [Israel’s] democracy and the attempt to recover [Israel’s] people, you will enjoy my personal support and the support of the Conservative Party.”

Kemi Badenoch, the former business and trade secretary, accused the Labour government of appeasing pro-Palestine mobs and attacked their decision to suspend some arms sales to Israel.

She said that based on the legal advice she had seen in office, “they did not need to be suspended.

“We need to make sure they don’t get away with telling lies”, she added, to applause from the crowd.

“We have a government that bows to the mob”, she said. “They have shown again and again that they don't have principles, they don't know what they stand for. They think that they can just do whatever they can to appease a few people and get away with it. We the Conservative Party must hold them to account.”

Shadow foreign secretary Andrew Mitchell MP. Credit: Conservative Friends of Israel.

Shadow foreign secretary Andrew Mitchell told the crowd that it was the first time in his 37 years as an MP headlining a CFI event.

Mitchell attacked the language in which Israel was discussed: “In Parliament, on the streets of London, on university campuses around the world, we witnessed a form of hysteria. Words like apartheid, genocide. Words that would make those that fought against Hitler and against apartheid in South Africa turn in their graves,” he said.

The shadow foreign secretary continued: “There is a deeply toxic trend that has spread like wildfire. A desire to not only demonise but to delegitimise the Jewish State to the point of turning back the clock to a time it did not exist… these sinister motivations increasingly masquerade as social justice. Blood libels take on the language of human rights.”

The audience also heard from Tzipi Hotovely, Israel’s ambassador to the UK, who said that “in the last five years, under the incredible Conservative leadership … the UK-Israel relationship has [grown] to new peaks and heights”.

Israel's Ambassador Tzipi Hotovely. Credit: Conservative Friends of Israel

Shai Shojat, the nephew of Michel Nisenbaum who was murdered by Hamas and kidnapped to Gaza on October 7, shared his uncle’s story and calling for the release of the remaining 101 hostages. He was joined on stage by his 11-year-old daughter Mia.