Dr. David Montgomery is a former Parliamentary Candidate for East Renfrewshire and former Association Chairman and President of Reigate Constituency.
On the 4th July this year I neither celebrated Independence Day with my American friends nor got any time to call my dad and wish him happy birthday. No, like so many colleagues I slogged my guts out for one more day to get my friend elected in a once thoroughly safe seat while all around us: carnage.
In Reigate, we bucked the national trend and I’m adamant that one key decision saved us.
We selected our replacement candidate as soon as we could, in July 2023. This gave Rebecca Paul (now MP, of course) the time she needed to build a strong, modern campaign.
The exact timing was unknown, but an election in 2024 was all but certain. It could have come alongside the locals in May, or shortly afterwards. So, why did we allow ourselves to go into such a difficult fight so un-prepared?
Early selections like Rebecca’s will be crucial at the next election. Money will be tight, resources spread thin, and we have no incumbency advantage in 529 seats. It is imperative that we get candidates in place with time to do what we did in Reigate. It’s imperative too that we change the way we fight.
There has been much focus on what needs to change at CCHQ but let’s be blunt: CCHQ’s performance was no different from 2019. Parachuting in candidates last minute to safe seats is nothing new. Neither is a relative lack of support for local Association campaigning outside of key targets. The unwillingness of CCHQ to adjust those target seats and redeploy resource and money elsewhere was a real error which cost us dear. But again, it had all happened before.
We should reform CCHQ’s approach to elections then, but that wouldn’t be enough. We need a more fundamental rethink. Some at the top of the party think the same.
During the leadership contest James Cleverly talked about campaigning in specific terms, highlighting getting candidates in place early as a key factor in the success we enjoyed in 2019. He considered it an important achievement in his time as party chairman. I agree.
Of perhaps more relevance given the choice now before the party members, Robert Jenrick has recently suggested scrapping the central candidates list – a step that would remove a lot of power from CCHQ.
He’s also thinking the right way.
I would argue we can’t rely on central command and control anymore. The solution must lie in the empowerment of local Associations. If we are being radical, CCHQ must be reshaped to serve Associations.
Not, as it sometimes feels, the other way round.
Above all, we should learn from each other. Up and down the country, Associations were working every hour to get this right in the toughest of fights and together we all learned lessons. I’m writing our campaign up and will hope to publish it as a campaign manual in the coming months. I hope others share their experiences too.
We relied heavily on social media built up over time.
We were very focused in our literature. We built a campaign team that was small but had sufficient resource to canvass tirelessly. We had time to train them to conduct a great GOTV campaign and to sample boxes on the night of the election more effectively than I have ever seen (so we have even better data on vote share by polling station which we can use to plan next time). And we ruthlessly focused on our best areas. Crucially, in the scheme of things, we spent little money.
And it all worked. We came out of the election with a majority of 3187 putting Rebecca Paul MP into Parliament with one of the largest majorities we have.
In the wake of a huge defeat, we need to go much further.
Our activist base must be rebuilt in hundreds of seats that were previously so safe they didn’t need to campaign at all. Some sitting MPs from opposition parties will be hard to shift, especially the Liberal Democrats in places like Epsom & Ewell, Surrey Heath or Dorking & Horley. But this can’t be micro-managed from CCHQ. There simply won’t be enough resource.
To replicate our campaign, candidates won’t need a lot of money. But what little they need is likely going to have to be raised locally. So they will need time to fundraise.
They’ll need time to develop and train a local campaign team who can canvass, deliver and conduct an organised GOTV operation.
They’ll need time to build a profile on social media. With a couple of years of focused work on Facebook, you can gain incredible reach into the local area for no money.
But it all starts with selecting someone to rally around and lead it. We simply must select early.
Life for our party has now changed. If we’re going to stand any chance of winning the next election (and honestly, if we want to ensure we secure second place and put ourselves in a position to win the next time) we must acknowledge that and adapt.
And it starts with the candidates.
