John Oxley is a consultant, writer, and broadcaster. His SubStack is Joxley Writes.
There was a certain freedom to this year’s conference. It is perhaps one of the few benefits of being out of government. There was less scrutiny from the media, it seemed – and in turn, less policing from inside of the party, lest a loose-lipped MP says something eye-catching.
Across the panels and fringes, people appeared a little more comfortable and more willing to say something actually interesting. It is a feeling the party should encourage.
When in power, MPs often appear on their guard, even in the most friendly of crowds. There is always a chance some misspoken line might emerge in the press and cause a kerfuffle of embarrassment.
This feeling is usually enforced either indirectly or expressly by the party and the whips. It filters through it to the other attendees, with all but the most outspoken adopting a defensive position. Better to be uninteresting than splashed in the Daily Mirror.
There’s a second pressure, too, that felt gratifyingly absent this year. When we are the governing party, collegiate pressure stems a lot of internal criticism. There’s an unspoken sense that even the mildest critiques will turn into headlines of chaos and disunity. It makes it hard to acknowledge mistakes or to anticipate where the party is failing.
The election shook out all those failings, and now it gives us cover to engage honestly with them. Around the venue, the party felt a little more unleashed, and a little more interesting for it.
The leadership contest got perhaps the most attention. But around the venue, there was a better sense of discussion than in recent years. Freed from the pressure and surveillance of government, people could really get into the arguments, whether they were MPs or members. It made for livelier and more honest debates than I’ve seen in recent conferences.
In the side rooms of the fringes, you could feel ideas flowing and getting a proper critique. There was more honesty about where the party had got things wrong or failed to deliver. There was engagement with issues we hadn’t talked much about before. There were people prepared to say things that might not go down so well with a focus group or compress into a soundbite.
Not all the ideas were good – indeed, many might be difficult, politically unpopular, or even unacceptable to the majority of the membership. Still, there was something exciting about the fact they were flowing more freely.
This is something the new leader should seek to foster. One of the problems of the last few years is that the party has struggled to generate ideas or debate them honestly. Sometimes, it has felt like it relies on the same small world of think tanks to create new policies, or has become wary of exploring ideas that haven’t been tested to death by focus groups and polling.
When things have made it into government, it has sometimes felt like the party is unwilling to question whether it is still working in practice. For those outside the world of Westminster, conference often feels like the only time they get involved in these conversations at all.
That makes the whole debate poorer. One of the best things about the annual fringes can be hearing from those you don’t normally discuss things with, from different geographies and perspectives. Getting rural Tories and urban ones in the same conversation, for example, gives both a chance to learn.
As a party on the rebound, this spirit is imperative to nurture. To win back the public, we are going to need new ideas and hefty doses of honesty, partly about where things went wrong but also about the vision and direction that the party is going to take.
Elections might be won on one or two issues, but manifestos (and good governance) require dozens of ideas, big and small. We need to be better at generating and testing them. We also need to be better at keeping everyone involved.
Each of the leadership contenders has spoken about reforming the party organisation. This has many elements, but one that should not be neglected is becoming more of a place to discuss policy.
This doesn’t mean members are writing the manifesto or binding ourselves to conference motions – it is about making more effort to listen, debate, and explain, just as we have all done in Birmingham. So doing will give the members a greater sense of purpose within the party, and also hopefully make them more understanding and respectful of policy positions they don’t necessarily agree with.
There are many things that the party has to do to win power. Being an organisation that fizzes with ideas and enthusiasm will make many of them easier. It will allow us to engage members better and be more robust in how we develop policy and take it to the electorate.
And there are a few easy changes that can make the party a place where ideas flow: from reinvigorating the Conservative Policy Forum to supporting more mini-conferences and policy discussions throughout the year.
Almost everyone has commented that this year’s conference was surprisingly chipper. This was, in part, because there was an energy of excitement about how we get back to power. This has seeded the demand for new ideas, but also, the lack of pressure around being in government made us freer in how we engaged with them. It’s a spirit we should foster and nurture.
It can’t be a conference every week. Neither our brains nor our livers could really take it. What we saw this week, though, of a party alive with debate about every aspect of the future of the right, is something we should try to seed through the political year. It might make bits of the party a bit less managed, but the fruits will likely be worth the occasional bit of embarrassment.
