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Top Tory says Conservatives should not copy 'protest movement' Reform

2024-07-15 00:00:00.0 每日快报-政治原网页

Andy Street has broken his silence on the future of the Tory party. (Image: Andy Street)

Losing hurts a lot (sadly I know), and right now across the Conservative Party there is a lot of hurting going on. From former MPs and their staff, to local associations and their volunteers, a general election defeat like this leaves many out of work - and even more with a bad taste in their mouth.

The normal emotional reaction in a situation like this is to try and bounce back rapidly. You think you know what went wrong, so you try to fix it as quickly as humanly possible. The Conservative Party lost a lot of votes to Reform, therefore the instinctive conclusion might be that we should have a swift leadership election to appoint a candidate from the right - and potentially even look at how we better integrate with Nigel Farage and Reform.

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But that’s not representative of the real world, and ignores the enormous ground lost to the Lib Dems and directly to Labour. Ultimately the Conservative Party lost votes in every direction as this became a “get the Tories out” election.

And that happened because my party stopped delivering for the citizens of the UK, and spent too much time listening to itself. In recent years did we really tackle immigration, improve public services, and build more homes to help young people onto the housing ladder? They’re the people’s priorities, but we failed to match them.

I knocked on a lot of doors to support those MPs who supported me, and that was the story that came up time and time again - a failure to deliver. The notion that we weren’t ideological enough? Not once.

Yet despite this many of my colleagues are now obsessing over ideology, and obsessing over Reform. To them I would urge: slow down (there is no rush for a new leader, an autumn contest is fine), recognise that Reform is a protest movement and not a potential party of Government, and properly diagnose what has happened and how the Conservatives rebuild a winning position.

Look at modern-day British society. It’s more diverse, tolerant, compassionate, and socially-liberally than perhaps it has ever been. This is where the majority are, and it is they who decide who has the privilege to lead our nation.

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So we Conservatives must show that we can deliver on their priorities and concerns. That means yes we need to succeed on taxation and immigration where the Conservative administration has faltered, but we also need credible plans for the NHS, for housing, and for net-zero - to name just three priority areas.

And we could even look to the West Midlands as an example. It is the most diverse place in Britain, home to some of the most affluent and most deprived areas of the country, boasting the youngest city in Europe alongside an ageing population in its towns, and a blend of beautiful countryside alongside dense urban industry. It is a microcosm of the country - and historically a staunch Labour heartland. Yet for seven years I was the Conservative Mayor here, defeating Labour twice against the odds.

Under our brand of Conservatism there was no culture war or inflammatory rhetoric, instead we got on and delivered what people wanted and needed. Doubling housebuilding, reconnecting communities through public transport, attracting record foreign investment, and vastly improving people’s skills and qualifications.

Underpinning all of this was a mission to use our region’s diversity as a strength, uniting rather than dividing.

Ultimately a damaged Conservative brand meant my record wasn’t enough to secure a third-straight election win, but we ran Labour mighty close - with a less-than 4% swing compared to a national swing of 20 points.

This approach, rooted in the centre but with a broad church uniting left and right, is consistent with the lessons of history. From Baldwin to Chamberlain, Blair to Cameron, all the big inflection points in political history have come when a challenger party takes the middle ground from the Government of the day, and repositions their party to exploit it.

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