You can lose right-wing voters by betraying them, but you cannot love-bomb the left into voting conservative, explains Andrew Hunt.
Shortly before the election was called, a much-admired gentleman called Jim Simons passed away. Simons was a mathematician, billionaire and philanthropist.
He was also the most successful hedge fund manager of all time. Beating the markets is notoriously difficult.
In this respect Simons and Warren Buffet stand above everyone else. When asked how he ran his super-successful hedge-fund Simons described it like this: “We make sure everyone knows what everyone else is doing, the sooner the better. That’s what stimulates people.”
Contrast this with Rishi Sunak, an erstwhile hedge fund manager, who like Simons was in charge of roughly 300 highly intelligent people. Yet Sunak and CCHQ went the opposite way. They built a fortress of secrecy. Sunak’s aides and closest MPs were advised to cut themselves off from friends, former colleagues and the outside world. The great boast was that they could drop a daft announcement (extra maths and national service anyone?) or call a snap election without it having been leaked in advance, such was the secrecy.
Who do you think was right: Simons or Sunak? If you run a democracy of seventy million people, why do you need secrets? Would we not have had better ideas, better execution and more motivated public sector workers and MPs if the leadership had been an open book? Isn’t that the point of democratic government?
Would we not have had better ideas, better execution and more motivated public sector workers and MPs if the leadership had been an open book? Isn’t that the point of democratic government?
So I’m with Suella Braverman. Unlike Kemi Badenoch, from now on, Suella wants it all out in the open. And she is right. Why are MPs hiding from the very truths everyone can agree on? There have been some amazing columns by Lord Frost, Sherelle Jacobs, Alistair Heath, Miriam Cates and Allison Pearson.
Like Suella, they are excoriating, but they are unarguable. Just the list of Conservative Party failures and broken promises runs to several pages. No one disagrees. So why not say it publicly? The sooner the better. That’s what stimulates people.
After all, isn’t this exactly what free speech is all about? We are all sick to the back teeth of PR, spin, management speak, cancel culture and wokery. Surely, now, more than ever, it is more important that you say it, rather than how you say it.
Being honest and open is the first step to the apology we are all owed. The party frankly cannot move forward until those who made this catastrophe show some remorse. Suella, Danny Kruger, and even Rishi Sunak have managed. Those who were in the cabinet need to do so publicly and individually, apologising for their part. They need to own it, and the first step requires some public contrition.
Let’s not forget, there are seventy million victims here. Seventy million people who have been lied to, repeatedly and deliberately. We have been extorted and impoverished by vested interests while everything of value has been trashed: our culture, quality of life, our institutions, our police, our NHS, our borders, our universities, our countryside, our corporate sector and even our currency. As victims, we all deserve to be in the conversation about the future of the Conservative Party..
Imagine if a crime gang were caught red-handed after fourteen years. Should we just say, “Oh go off for some quiet consideration amongst yourselves”? Or imagine a business that lost 90% of its shareholders (read members) and 60% of its customers (voters). Management would be called to account, not let off with some navel-gazing. The sense of entitlement here is breath-taking.
Or imagine a business that lost 90% of its shareholders (read members) and 60% of its customers (voters). Management would be called to account, not let off with some navel-gazing. The sense of entitlement here is breath-taking.
Thus, it is surely only right that the conversation from here needs to be democratic and transparent – driven by public engagement and public decision-making – and not cooked up by a claque of MPs in some Westminster sauna.
In this sense Suella is right again. We can no longer run away from what the polls and election results are telling us. Shortly before the election, the Conservative Post led with coverage of the Whitestone Insight / Lady McAlpine polls. These high quality and extensive polling showed that the country was crying out for a new conservative leader with conservative values. That includes being tough on immigration, crime, net zero and wokery.
Crucially, personality alone was not enough to bring voters back. Only true Conservative policies – of the very sort Suella has been campaigning for – could reverse the tide. Subsequently, the General Election and Lord Ashcroft’s YouGov polling has emphatically confirmed this.
However, much as the elites wish to ignore poll after poll, none of the centrists have produced any data to the contrary. Let’s not forget that in spite of the Conservative car crash, Labour have shed three million voters since 2017 under Jeremy Corbyn. Even the Liberal Democrats received fewer votes than in 2019. Not only do members not want it, but the voter base just is not there for another centrist party.
And anyway, how can we compete with the Lib Dems? We have a worse record of dishonesty and incompetence in government combined with a completely inappropriate brand. Brand matters. Voters vote conservative because they want tough on crime, tight immigration and lower taxes. When we do the opposite, we lose our voter base, but we do not win over new voters. This has been consistent since COP26. Boris went all-in on Net Zero, yet after three weeks he came away worse off in the polls than before. Record immigration, record spending, record welfare, record tax, record regulation – none of it has persuaded a single left-of-centre to vote tory. You can lose right-wing voters by betraying them, but you cannot love-bomb the left into voting conservative. We know that now.
Record immigration, record spending, record welfare, record tax, record regulation – none of it has persuaded a single left-of-centre to vote tory.
So once everyone has apologised, the next step is to re-run those comprehensive polls, just like Lady McAlpine and Lord Ashcroft have been doing, and find out, across every major issue, what do our members want? What do conservative voters want? And what do those Lost Conservatives want?
And those questions need to give clear answers: ECHR – in or out? Net migration – yes or no? Triple lock – keep or dump? Net zero – keep or dump?
Then and only then, should MPs, taking the lead from their constituency committees, select candidates based on how they match with conservative voters’ preferences. Personality and presentation are not enough.
And what should be done with the centrist MPs – the so-called wets? Perhaps it is the simple matter of reminding them that MPs are elected to fulfil the promises they have made, to represent their voters and to win over more voters. When you represent the conservative party, you are expected to demonstrate integrity, competence, and to be democratically elected into government three quarters of the time to do conservative things.
The country is full of staff nurses, cleaners and farmers who get a quarter of MPs’ pay and none of the perks. They go out and do their job. Sometimes they have to hold their nose. They do it because if all they did all day was make excuses about why they are not going to do what they are paid to, they would quickly find themselves out the door, with no house, no money and no food.
Do your job. And if that’s too much to ask, then you’re welcome to join Cameron, Osborne, Rory Stewart and Tobias Ellwood in their little parlour game of dressing up as Tony Blair and admiring each other in the vanity mirror. Just not on our vote and not on our time. We can deselect anti-democratic MPs with confidence. Because with a truly conservative party and without the protest vote of the general election, we can win any bi-election comfortably.
Do your job. And if that’s too much to ask, then you’re welcome to join Cameron, Osborne, Rory Stewart and Tobias Ellwood in their little parlour game of dressing up as Tony Blair and admiring each other in the vanity mirror.
Crucially, only a democratically chosen and popular leader can bring the stability the party needs. We have seen this before. When the leader has the backing of voters and members, Parliamentary MPs are stable and supportive (think Thatcher or Johnson in 2019). When they ignore or defy their members and voters, the entire party descends into chaos, civil war and leadership coups (May, Truss, Sunak). A strong and democratic membership is the ballast of the good ship Conservatism.
That is why any decent leader will use their time in office to push through the necessary constitutional reforms to put governance back in the hands of members. That way, CCHQ can never again be captured by corrupt vested interests or an undemocratic leader.
This is no different from how companies are run. Every year, listed companies have to hold AGMs with votes on management, the annual report and other vital issues. In practice, it is rare for company executives or boards members to poll less than 90% in favour. The very act of regular democracy forces company management teams to constantly engage with their shareholders. They cannot cut themselves off and live in an elitist bubble of delusion. Democracy can bring that same level of stability, accountability and engagement to conservatism and to government.
A key element of that is winning back the youth vote. As the Guardian revealed, CCHQ has been complicit in ostracising young conservatives, thereby destroying our future. What Refrom showed us is that the young are not foolish. The same is true all across Europe, where the New Right is mainly a youth movement. There is a latent conservative force here just waiting to be won over. Yet, thanks to CCHQ, we just haven’t bothered. That is yet another reason why we must clear out CCHQ, and launch a comprehensive digital engagement strategy. That should include polling and asking young conservatives every day about the future of their country. Members should have an active say on every policy.
Once again, reform have stolen the digital lead from under our noses. In the hour after Nigel Farage put out his crossover tweet, he got more than 16000 likes. Rishi Sunak, the sitting PM, got just 700 likes in the hour after his Manifesto launch. That shows how far there is to go.
It’s a disgrace to villainise Nigel Farage, for simply offering to complete the promises the conservative party made. From a standing start, Farage produced a better manifesto, he won more donations, he won the TV debates and he won on social media and comms. MPs need the humility to learn from someone, who frankly is doing a better job.
It is not enough to have another leader who deals secretly behind closed doors while taking voters and members for granted. Kemi Badenoch, for all her qualities, needs to get with the programme, and stop taking everyone outside her little clique for granted. It is voters and members who win elections, not MPs.
And that is why Suella is right: MPs need to be brutally honest. They need to apologise as individuals. Then they need to choose the next leader and direction of the party based on what their voters (members, voters and lost Tories) want. Listening to members matters. Polling matters, and extensive polling needs to be done. Voters cannot be ignored. Do your job.
Listening to members matters. Polling matters, and extensive polling needs to be done. Voters cannot be ignored. Do your job.
Then MPs need to clear out CCHQ and democratise the party into an engaged mass movement, sweeping up young digitally-engaged voters along with them.
The prize is enormous. As the Whitestone Insight polls showed, if the Conservative Party can become a democratic and truly conservative movement, we can win big.
We can win back over two thirds of the Lost Tories – that includes those who did not vote as well as most Reform voters. Together, that’s another 15%. Then there’s the protest voters and 2019 Red Wall voters who went to the Lib Dems and Labour, making up about 20% of their voter base. That’s another 9%. After five years of disastrous far-left labour government, we can surely win over a few percent of the youth vote (aided by digital engagement), just as the European right has. That’s another 5%.
Tot it all up and that gets you to 53%. Stick that into Electoral Calculus, and that’s 520 seats.
Meanwhile the left are split every which way. There is no scenario under which a centrist conservative party gets over 170 seats. Ever. Let that sink in.
The greatest landslide in history and a mandate to rescue the country, that is what we are fighting for. And that is why I’m with Suella.
Eyes on the Prize! Eyes Right.
By Andrew Hunt.
Author Andrew Hunt graduated from Cambridge with a Law degree in 2003. He worked in TV production before moving into finance. It was here that he became fascinated by how personal investors and small companies could turn negligible resources into enormous fortunes. Applying the same mindset and principles, Hunt was able to retire in his thirties. He now invests in interesting projects which aim to make the world a better place and runs a radical centre-right environmental think tank. He is also the author of Better Value Investing and a Senior Advisor at the Conservative Democratic Organisation (CDO).
