Over the coming weeks, CapX will be running a number of perspectives on the future of the Conservative Party. If you have an idea you would like to contribute, get in touch at [email protected].
Five years ago, we secured one of the largest majorities in our Party’s history. Our mission chimed with working class people across the North and the Midlands who had never before thought about voting Conservative. For the first time they trusted us and we demolished the Red Wall.
As the blue swept across the country on election night in 2019, I was honoured to be returned as Hyndburn’s new Member of Parliament. Voters had turned their backs on Labour, a Party they’d supported without question for generations, and put their trust in me.
It was not only a huge privilege to represent my hometown, but also to be part of a new wave of Conservative MPs that voters across Lancashire, Yorkshire and Teesside had put their faith in to improve their lives.
While we achieved a lot during our time in government, including ‘getting Brexit done’, seeing off the threat of Jeremy Corbyn and his socialist agenda and overseeing the fastest vaccine rollout in Europe, for both my constituents and the rest of Britain, our efforts weren’t enough.
First-time Conservative voters put their trust in us, and then felt we failed to repay them. That is why they rejected us at the ballot box, choosing ‘change’ with Labour instead.
Now we are faced with a bleak reality, one that many of us tried so hard to avoid. However, that’s not to say we can’t recover. We can win in five years’ time and we must do everything in our power to make sure that’s the case.
The first thing we need to do is rebuild trust among the coalition of voters’ who supported us five years ago. This must not only focus on Reform and the Liberal Democrats, but more importantly on Labour voters as well. Winning back all three of these groups will be vital if we’re to succeed.
It is starkly apparent that voters don’t believe in either Labour, the Green Party, the Liberal Democrats or Reform. Labour’s vote share increased by just 1.6% between 2019 and 2024, showing people didn’t really care for Labour’s message. We lost this election for the simple reason that people didn’t trust us anymore and wanted to punish us for not delivering what we said we would
But, this does not mean voters throughout this country have lost the conservative principles that convinced them to vote for us in 2019. They haven’t ‘rediscovered their Labour roots’. What they want is a Conservative Leader they trust, someone who means what they say and they say what they mean.
As we enter the race to choose the next Leader of the Conservative Party, we need to be open and honest with ourselves. We need someone who will reset our relationship with voters, rebuild their trust and most importantly be able to talk to the Labour and Liberal Democrat voters who formed the basis of our 2019 coalition. This is the only way we’ll win the next General Election.
And that is why I believe Tom Tugendhat is the candidate that we need to move forward.
Tom is honest and authentic. He understands the issues not only the Party, but the country faces. He will build a traditional conservative platform that delivers the change we need. Most importantly, a platform that appeals to a broad range of voters who, for some reason or another, abandoned us this time round.
If we achieve this, we will be in an incredibly strong position to rebuild trust with the British people, reunite the 2019 voters and return to government in five years’ time.
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