Does the UK Conservative Party have conservative policies?

by Lynda Goetz

Pixabay - Alexas_fotos

Are the Tories going anywhere at all, or are they, as some have suggested, a spent force? This seemed to be the question at the heart of the South West Conservative Policy Forum (CPF) conference in Exeter, which I attended last weekend. As a more-or-less lifelong Tory voter, I have several confessions to make. First, I only joined the party in 2018, when it became clear that the hopes pinned on Theresa May to make an acceptable Brexit deal were running out and a leadership race was becoming increasingly inevitable. Secondly, that although I certainly did not vote LibDem or Labour in the last election (having never had rose-tinted spectacles about either party’s ability to run the country), and am still, almost to my own surprise, a paid-up Conservative Party member, I may well not be voting Tory when the next election comes around.

I attended the Forum last weekend, drawn in by the idea that policies put forward at such events are fed back to  Conservative Central Office (Conservative Campaign Headquarters  or CCHQ, as party activists call it). Over the last 15 years it has seemed that Conservative leaders and those around them have been increasingly unaware of what their party stands for, what ‘Conservatism’ actually is and whether or not their policies are in tune with what their supporters believe (the CPF has been in existence, with different names and slightly different formats, since 1945). I am not going to try here to give any sort of exhaustive definition of Conservatism. There is not the space and others, far more erudite than me, have already done so quite comprehensively*.

Unfortunately however since the beginning of this century (and before), being conservative has been out of favour almost everywhere. The aim was rather to be progressive and modern, forward-thinking, kind, embracing diversity and inclusivity; not stuck-in-the mud traditionalists,  the backward-looking “nasty party”. This has resulted in increasing conformity and a willingness to allow socialist ideas to prevail, even where this has been detrimental to the country. After the difficulties of making Brexit work and capitalizing on the benefits we should have enjoyed from leaving the EU, not to mention the national malaise which seemed to overtake the country after the Covid pandemic, many had lost patience with the Tories. They had been too long in government. They needed to go.

The Labour Party's claim to recognise the desire for “Change” led to those who bothered to vote into believing that Labour could somehow quickly fix things. Not only was this deluded, but it was also politically naïve and took no account of history. Labour’s idea of ‘Change’ was effectively more of the same, only worse: more spending, more socialism, more benefits, more taxes (as if the Tories hadn’t been doing enough of all that already) and just as much hypocrisy.

Hypocrisy and corruption were two aspects of the Conservative government that had particularly incensed voters. The hope and belief was that these Labour sons of toil (or toolmakers) and daughters of deprived families would truly reflect working-class values and sweep aside the aspects of politics which had made the voters particularly mistrustful of those in charge.  The cake-eaters would be banished and the Honest Joes (and Angelas) would replace them. The People would benefit. Sadly, this has not proved to be the case.

Within months of forming a government, Sir Keir Starmer, his wife and members of his inner circle were found to have accepted thousands of pounds worth of clothes and hospitality from Labour party donor Lord Alli. Although not in itself illegal, they had failed to register all of these in the register of MPs interests. In November, Transport Secretary, Louise Haigh, resigned having omitted to declare a previous fraud case over a mobile phone (although she had been given a conditional discharge). Not long after, Tulip Sadiq, Economic Secretary to the Treasury, whose brief included regulating corruption in the financial sector, was investigated for possible breach of the Ministerial Code relating to a fraud investigation connected to her family in Bangladesh, and eventually resigned in January of this year (although evidence of improprieties was “not identified”). Health Minister Andrew Gwynne was sacked over offensive WhatsApp messages the following month. Last month the Homelessness Minister, Rushanara Ali, resigned after being exposed for ending her tenants’ fixed-term contract, supposedly in order to sell the property, but then agreeing  to re-let it to new tenants at £700 a month more. Given her particular responsibilities and as this is a practice the government is trying to outlaw under its Renters’ Rights Bill, her position became untenable. Finally, of course there was Angela Rayner’s case, the details of which I do not need to reiterate as almost everybody is by now sick to death of hearing about it. So, it turns out (surprise ,surprise) that the Socialist politicians are not paragons of virtue after all.

As well as all this, it transpires that pandering to the Unions and failing to curb Welfare, whilst allowing a continuing influx of legal as well as illegal immigrants does not help grow the economy. On the contrary, increasing employers’ National Insurance Contributions, (NICs) whilst bolstering workers’ rights leads to a squeeze on jobs and decreased growth. As Kemi Badenoch said in her speech at the Chartered Accountants Hall this week, “Alongside record levels of taxation, this Government is borrowing more and more money and our national credit card is close to maxed out”. She is now offering to support the Prime Minister’s attempts to reform welfare, last scuppered in July by his own backbenchers.

This is in itself an interesting development. Many people have long been calling the Labour and Conservatives, the "Uniparty", a recognition of how far the Conservatives have moved away from their core values towards socialist and ‘soft Left’ ideas. At last weekend’s CPF conference there were three topics up for discussion: Business, Defence, and Immigration. After talks by various MPs and volunteers, we got together in our tables of ten and attempted to put forward ideas which could be taken up as policies by the party. On the subject of Business, several interesting ideas were put forward, including the idea that businesses of fewer than ten employees should be classified as ‘Micro’ businesses and exempted from the proliferation of rules which apply to Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). Existing and proposed legislation is so burdensome that many owners of such businesses cannot even make as much as their own employees on the latest minimum wage. On Defence, the issues of recruitment and morale were addressed, inter alia, and ideas put forward to improve both. In the afternoon, the dynamic Robert Jenrick turned up (late, but he had apparently been in Wiltshire talking to GB News) and there was a lively discussion on Immigration, a subject on which Jenrick has long gone against the prevailing Tory consensus.

It was very clear amongst the hundred or so in the room that whilst absolutely no-one was racist, (in fact there were quite a number of immigrants themselves amongst our number) everyone felt that saturation point had been reached and it was patently unfair for legal immigrants, e.g on student visas or Afghans with legitimate claims to asylum, to be able to bring in huge ‘families’ whilst at least one amongst those present had had to break off a relationship because they were unable to fulfil the stringent requirements for bringing in partners. It was also abundantly clear that treating illegal (or what the BBC prefers to call "irregular") immigrants better than our own homeless, who had probably paid into the system at some point, and insisting, for example, that "in the 21^st century" they "needed en-suite facilities", was regarded as a ludicrous nonsense. The increased politicisation of the judiciary worried many.

It is hard these days to see a great deal of difference between what the leadership of the Reform party believes in and what the Tories now seem to claim they believe in (apart from differences for example on nationalisation and the two-child benefit cap). Both seem to be laying claim to rewarding those who believe in hard work and aspiration; both seem to doubt the benefits of David Milliband’s Net Zero zealotry (although the Tories are guilty of introducing this idea under Theresa May ); both want to reduce the reliance on Welfare  and improve our defence capabilities and so on. The Tories seem to be relying, or at least that is to some extent what it felt like last Saturday, on their 200-year history and to be decrying Reform’s inexperience and newness as a party. It seems to be felt that this will prevent them from getting anything done in government should they manage to win the next election.

It seems to me , as to many others, that it will not simply be inexperience that will stop them from achieving their aims, but two other major factors: firstly the increasingly eclectic nature of their supporters, who do not all have the same agenda, and secondly, the Civil Service. Already, “the Blob” has ensured its own socialist continuity, by legislation which is going to make recruitment subject to having parents in “working class occupations" when they are aged 14. As anyone who ever watched Anthony Jay’s hilarious Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister, broadcast way back in the 1980s, will know, those in the Civil Service have plenty of ways of ensuring that their needs are met before those of the country or the desires of Ministers. They may no longer be Latin and Greek-speaking Oxbridge classicists or PPE graduates, but they have their own ways of making sure that their departmental budgets are not cut, their numbers and their pensions are increased and generally as little as possible is changed.

The Tories, whilst able to lay claim to a long history and being the oldest party in the UK Parliament (or as was claimed on Saturday "in the world", although this is stretching reality somewhat**), are very much hampered by the poor and damaging legacy of their fourteen years in power, for which many find it hard to forgive them. Perhaps, rather than joining with Sir Keir Starmer to help him out with his welfare reforms,  Kemi Badenoch (or whoever is in charge of the Tories when the election finally happens) should be considering cooperation with Reform, at the very least in the form of an electoral pact. Nigel Farage may wish to do this even less than the Tories, having been betrayed the first time around, but it would certainly feel like a more progressive alliance than helping out Sir Keir, who appears to be going backwards, whilst shouting “Change!”

*e.g Roger Scruton ‘The Meaning of Conservatism’ 1984, ‘How to be a Conservative’ 2015 ‘Conservatism’ 2017, 

**A Very Short History of the Conservative Party  (by Ed Selkirk Ford: The Constitution Society)