The Telegraph, 28th July 2024
Our failures on migration, taxes and trans ideology cost us at the election but my fellow party members refuse to face up to them
Politics is bruising and thankless. But the honour of being sent to the green benches by thousands of your fellow citizens is a gift unique to democracies, of which there are fewer around the world.
Whilst our democracy is in rude health, the battering that we Conservatives received is painful. Hundreds of excellent Conservative MPs lost their seats. I think often about friends who find themselves abruptly unemployed.
There has been much discussion about how we suffered the worst ever result in history. But still no consensus. The disaster was down to our failure to keep promises. We did not cut immigration despite saying we would; we raised taxes to a 70-year high whilst pledging the opposite and we over-reacted to Covid which disabled our public services. We failed to tackle the long tail of Blairism contained in the Human Rights Act, Equality Act and European Convention on Human Rights, despite complaining about them. And it was on our watch that transgender ideology and critical race theory seeped into our institutions, notwithstanding our rhetoric.
It’s not comfortable accepting these truths. I’ve tried to set them out and been vilified by some colleagues. But it is what it is. Anyone who leads our party needs to accept them or else prepare for a decade in the wilderness.
On the night of the general election, I did the one thing I thought any of us could do on that dreadful evening when we lost half our vote and two thirds of our MPs: I said sorry. I meant it then and I mean it now: I accept my share of the blame, and I appreciate that we got things monumentally wrong. The result was not some freak, “loveless landslide” for Labour. It was predicted, preventable, deserved and, as yet, unaddressed.
It’s why the other inconvenient truth we must confront is the existential threat posed by Reform. Nigel Farage destroyed us. We have no hope of recovery until we win back the trust of the four million. Branding them as racists and comparing their events to Nuremberg rallies did not work during the campaign and it won’t work now.
People talk about in-fighting. What they mean is those of us who saw this threat years ago and warned about it. But they are wrong. The reality is that we were a united party under Rishi Sunak. We MPs united to install him as PM with a coronation. Rishi never lost a vote because of Tory rebellion (save for Infected Blood). Precisely everything on Rishi’s agenda was nodded through: smoking bans, pedicabs, tax rises, Windsor framework and even the misguided early general election.
In fact, if only our Rwanda rebellion had succeeded, we would have got flights off. But not enough colleagues joined us, instead putting “unity” above a fatally flawed law that failed to stop the boats – as we predicted. Compare that to the paralysis that crippled Theresa May’s government. Now that was division. One moral of this story is that so many colleagues were lost at the altar of unity. Not because of occasional comment from backbenchers.
So where to next? Although I’m grateful to the 10 MPs who wanted to nominate me for the leadership, getting onto the ballot is not enough. There is, for good or for ill, no point in someone like me running to lead the Tory Party when most of the MPs disagree with my diagnosis and prescription. The traumatised party does not want to hear these things said out loud. Instead, platitudes about “unity” are fashionable. That’s all fine but it’s not honest. When I said multiculturalism wasn’t working, I meant it. When, two years ago, I argued that we needed to leave the ECHR to stop the boats (as opposed to the cryptic talk about “readiness” or “reform”. Reader, beware of those reinventing themselves as ECHR-sceptics), it’s because it was true. When I’ve said the police needed to be tougher on pro-Palestinian thugs, that was the right thing to do.
Now we are in a crisis and that’s why I’m being honest again about our problems. So we can fix them and go on to win.
I can only apologise to the people who backed me to stand. To the thousands of party members and the many disenchanted ex-Conservative voters who have written to me, I’m sorry. I cannot run because I cannot say what people want to hear. I do not complain about this – it’s democracy in action and worked for Keir Starmer. I’ve been branded mad, bad and dangerous enough to see that the Tory Party does not want to hear the truths I’ve set out.
I wish all the candidates the best. The survival of our party depends on the outcome of this contest. And it is not just about unity. Pretending that we are united on the surface when we are unreconciled on policy won’t work.
We must provide a bold, authentic and compelling vision of hope to the law-abiding, common sense, aspirational patriots. We are at our best when we offer them a full-throated defence of our country, meritocracy and fairness. When we don’t allow our people to be worn down by smears of racism simply for waving our flag or wanting less migration. When we fight for their freedom to spend their hard-earned money before the government sucks it up. Where we stand for the strength and sovereignty of the family unit, and its corollary, home ownership, as the bedrock of society. Where we eschew the luxury beliefs brigade and instead work for the well-being of the most deprived towns and communities. When we fight for our national sovereignty, culture and identity as if our civilisation depends on it. And when we restore pride in our nation so that those brave souls who keep us safe at home and abroad are not demonised or prosecuted for every judgment made in the heat of conflict.
Whoever takes charge will, I know, have the best intentions and I will support them from the backbenches for a Conservative revival, a privilege for which I am deeply grateful.
