Sir Brandon Lewis CBE was the MP for Great Yarmouth (2010-2024) and Former Lord Chancellor, Secretary of State & Party Chairman.
In this year’s election we know that a huge number of people who had voted for us as a Party in 2019 (& possibly 2017, 2015 too) simply stayed at home.
Others decided to place their vote in a different box, with a range of reasons being outlined as to why, ranging from “you have had 14 years” and then moving to immigration. But it was just as often related to a range of other complaints.
Infighting. Incompetence. Policies which small business owners felt had hindered rather than helped them, and a sense that government was taking too much from people’s pockets and had become detached from their everyday lives.
And they all added up to what the polls had been suggesting: that, over time, we had lost the support of most groups other than pensioners – and we lost a not insignificant proportion of those, too.
That’s why there is a need for us all to focus on bringing people from across the parliamentary party and broader Conservative family together to help rebuild our Party to make it fit for future office (both in terms of policy and in terms of delivery on the campaign front) hence the work to launch Conservative Networks, an organisation to build networks of people and organisations that want to see Conservative governments elected – Conservative Governments that do the things we expect them to.
Things that, whichever wing of the party you’re on, you should be able to agree with:
Keeping taxes low.
Looking to families, businesses and charities to tackle problems before looking to government to do it.
Promoting aspiration and social mobility.
Reforming public services, not just spending more money on them.
With this in mind, Conservative Networks will aim to do 3 things:
It will create networks of people who are supporters of the Conservative Party but might not, for whatever reason, want to become a party member. This is a conservative country and the number of people who privately want the Conservative Party to succeed dramatically outnumbers those that want to join the party, we have to recognise this and offer an opportunity for people to engage form this angle too.
There will be networks of businesses and public sector professionals, of farmers and young people – and plenty more. Networks that can help the new leader and shadow cabinet to understand why we lost the support of people like them and, crucially, how we can get it back. As a former Party Chairman, I fully appreciate how important it is for us to connect with our potential voters and show that we care about the same things and have answer to the challenges ahead.
The second thing it will do is help broaden the range of people coming forward to stand for election, or to act as advisors to those who do. The backgrounds of MPs and their advisors has narrowed considerably towards people who have spent most – or all – of their lives in politics.
However brilliant those people can be, to make effective decisions we need a broad range of people who, whatever they’ve done before – whether worked on a hospital ward, started a business, in short, increase the number people who have done things other than just politics.
Through the networks that we build, we will find people who may never have considered standing for election (which is what happened to me in 1997 when I was first encouraged to become actively involved) or being an advisor, who can help the party to have a better understanding of the areas it needs to make policy and legislation for.
The third thing it will do is help develop policy so that we’re recognisably Conservative – clear, proud, relevant and convincing.
We already have lots of great think tanks on the centre right (I am proud to work with and support several of these great organisations) and there’s no need to create another one. But the people in the networks created will give the shadow cabinet focussed, practical policy suggestions based on what is happening in their fields of expertise.
Right now, the most important thing we need is not the policies to write a new manifesto for an election in 4 or 5 years’ time, but to spend time listening to people about why they lost faith in us and how we can restore it. Then to work to earn the right to be heard again on policy.
With only 121 MPs at present, a lot of the parliamentary party’s capacity is going to be taken up by activity in parliament, so Conservative Networks will help ensure it can stay properly connected to the world beyond Westminster.
Importantly, we will not be associated with any particular wing of the party or any leadership candidate past or present as factionalism (and a perception, or reality, of infighting that results from that) is one of the factors that led to lost support.
On our parliamentary board and advisory group, we will have people from all parts of the party–recognising that we all need to work together to ensure we can deliver together for our Party and most importantly, for our country.
If you want to do that too you can sign up here.
