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].
If the trumpet gives an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle? For years, the Conservative Party has dissolved into a syrup of platitudes. To the extent that its leaders uttered any distinctive Conservative ideology, it was contradicted by the policy that was pursued.
So they would say they ‘believed’ in freedom – but placed us under house arrest during the pandemic. Or that they ‘believed’ in low taxes and a smaller state – while imposing the highest tax burden for 70 years, the Gordon Brown era being a golden age by comparison. Or that they ‘believed’ in home ownership and increasing the housing supply – while making the supply more constrained and thus the chance of getting on the property ladder harder than ever. Patriotic rhetoric was offered with our country’s flag prominently in view – while Northern Ireland was sold out to appease the EU, British history denigrated in our schools amid the indulgence of other woke excesses and illegal entrants allowed in at the behest of foreign judges.
‘We talked Right but governed Left’, as Kemi Badenoch put it at her leadership launch. ‘Sounding like Conservatives but acting like Labour’. Sometimes it was worse than that. Theresa May was hardly a rousing champion for free enterprise. The 2017 Manifesto was a repudiation of such an approach. Nor did Michael Gove, at least in his later period in office, even pretend to believe in a small state.
While few dared repudiate Margaret Thatcher, we would hear that her approach was ‘right for the time’ but not for the ‘challenges of today’ – or some such assertion. Public spending was invariably dubbed ‘investment’ – with the implication that was the means to achieve economic growth. Churchill’s warning that ‘for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle’ was forgotten.
Now the Conservatives are proceeding with the giant therapy session of a leadership contest. It has actually been rather encouraging. To varying degrees, all the candidates have accepted that the millions of Conservative voters who went on strike in July – abstaining or voting for Reform UK – had a bit of a point. The Conservative Government had failed to deliver Conservative policies. Nor was it enough to pretend that the failure was due to it being ‘impossible’ to do otherwise due to the blob, the pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or some other excuse. There will always be pressures. But if there had been determination and a sense of purpose, those pressures could have been overcome.
All those contenders for the leadership are, belatedly, offering clear and authentic Conservative messages. But in this cynical age, whoever prevails will face some difficulty in ending the Conservative identity crisis. When the Labour Government is held to account on the extraordinary extension of state intrusion into banning smoking in pub gardens, or Ed Miliband’s Net Zero zealotry, the retort will be that the direction of travel was set by the Conservatives. This is a point that Nigel Farage will be keen to keep at the forefront of the electorate’s mind.
One way to show the public that the Conservative Party was truly Conservative would be through local government. If the Conservatives gain control of a council from Labour, will that mean lower Council Tax? Lots of beautiful new housing being approved? Less bureaucracy? A halt to political correctness by the public sector? I’m afraid the evidence is rather limited thus far. Similarly, electing a Conservative as a Police and Crime Commissioner had not done much to ensure robust, even-handed policing.
So is the Conservative Party doomed? Not necessarily. Many former Conservatives ditched the Party on the basis that ‘Labour couldn’t be any worse’. Keir Starmer is moving fast to disabuse them of that comforting notion.
Another factor is that voters are not fools. They might not be interested in the minutiae of policy, but they have a shrewd idea if a politician means what he says. Will the Conservative leadership in the coming years just read a script of what they have been told they need to say to win voters back to the fold? Or will they mean it?
The new leader will not be able to do it all on his or her own. One of the most articulate Conservatives of his generation is Jacob Rees-Mogg, who lost his seat at the election. But he could still be enlisted to the ranks. There is speculation that he might be offered the position of Conservative Party Chairman – which is not a Parliamentary role. It is understood that he would be keen to take it on. True, he is busy preventing an evening programme on GB News. But then so does Nigel Farage, who manages to combine that with being a Party leader.
Rees-Mogg shares that star quality that Boris Johnson enjoys in such abundance that most politicians find elusive. When Rees-Mogg addressed the Popular Conservatives in July, shortly after the election, he was surrounded by a media scrum of photographers and cameramen. With his resounding call to rebuild a mass membership, his speech at the conference was almost a job application to be Party Chairman.
When he spoke in March at the dinner of a conference hosted by Margaret Thatcher Centre in Buckingham, it was perhaps no surprise that lots of the guests sought selfies. But when I bumped into him in Victoria Street a few weeks ago, several members of the public did too, during a chat which can’t have been longer than five minutes.
His family are to be the subject of a reality TV programme and thus he is destined for further fame. Finding him interesting or entertaining is different from agreeing with him, of course. Some may find his poshness, his retro style or his Christianity off-putting – but at least he is confident about who he is. Nor is his priggish – as was shown by his interview with Ali G many years ago.
Rees-Mogg combines being highly capable of making the Conservative case with being able to get a hearing. People will listen to him as they sense he is the ‘real deal’ – to use a term he would probably avoid. He is well suited both to persuade lapsed supporters back to the fold, but also to make converts, especially among younger voters by offering arguments they may not be familiar with.
Being in opposition means very limited opportunity to do anything. In the new Shadow Cabinet, the post of Party Chairman is an exception. Sending for Rees-Mogg would make the most of a golden opportunity.
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