Whispering to the camera while standing in a dark French park earlier this month, Robert Jenrick bore as much resemblance to an online “migrant hunter” as a traditional Conservative politician. “They are hiding just behind these trees here,” said the shadow justice secretary, gesturing towards a group he had followed from a migrant camp.

While at the camp, he had filmed and interviewed men waiting to cross the English channel, before running away after apparently being pelted with bottles. The video was the latest instalment of a carefully constructed social media campaign by Jenrick, 43, who was beaten to the Tory leadership last year by Kemi Badenoch. Rather than disappear quietly into the ranks of the shadow cabinet, he has loudly positioned himself in the same territory as Nigel Farage’s Reform party, courting controversy and stepping up his hardline anti-immigration rhetoric during this summer’s asylum hotel protests.

Throughout, Jenrick has kept his presence alive in the minds of a Tory membership unsure about Badenoch and worried about the party’s floundering place in the polls. “He’s making huge waves with his social media stuff”, said Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, “and by trying to generally give the impression they should have picked him rather than her.” An August ranking of the shadow cabinet among readers of the Conservative Home news website places Jenrick far ahead of his colleagues. “The shadow justice secretary’s popularity has become entrenched,” noted an editorial.