Francis Luscombe is Chairman of the South Devon Constituency Conservative Association
From the outset of this leadership contest,the various candidates have preached the gospel of party unity.
It makes sense to me why they would. As the Constituency Chairman in South Devon,many miles away from Westminster, we could feel very tangibly how the constant back-biting, infighting and factionalism in the Parliamentary Party filtered into defeats at council elections and, eventually, at the general election.
I am not sure that the parliamentary party realises how damaging, petty and self-serving their behaviour has seemed. The inner machinations of who thinks what and can`t control their zeal for their own opinions may be of interest to those involved but certainly is not to the wider electorate.
There is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that whoever wins this contest must be capable of bringing the party back together, and not in the “agree with me or you’re out” way – we have too few MPs and too few councillors for an overmighty leader to start sending down diktats from on high.
Inner debate should be encouraged but external divide should not.
We must remember the Victorian maxim “not in front of the children” or in this case not in front of the media many of whom pay lip service to objective reporting and enjoy feasting on our political problems.
Remember the result of the General Election and the loss of a huge number of seats and ourvote share of 24%. This fills me with anger and a determination never to let this happen again.
So, we need a leader with intellectual rigour who can build consensus through ideas and persuasion.
Someone who wins on the basis of ideas and then brings the party with them on the journey of turning those ideas into concrete policy. Someone who has consistently stood for a set of beliefs and principles and can articulate them fearlessly.
We also need someone who has conducted themselves in a manner that suggests they want to unify the party.
Like many party members I voted for Rishi Sunak and I wanted to see him succeed. His government didn’t always get it right, but we knew that the alternative would be much worse.
How we’re paying for it now.
Giving away the Chagos Islands, VAT on school fees, winter fuel payments stripped from hard-up pensioners. We are stuck with a vacuous hypocritical Prime Minister, a Chancellor who appears to have no original ideas and talks about growth whilst taxing entrepreneurs and a Health Secretary whose main idea is to ask us for ideas to improve the NHS despite 14 years in opposition to refine his own ideas.
I don’t care how disappointed you were with Rishi, Starmer and Labour have been disastrous, and we should – we could – have stopped them.
Instead, almost from the day that Liz Truss won the contest in 2022, MPs were gearing up to take her, and then Rishi, down. The ridiculous ‘Five Families’ of Tory MPs giving nasty anonymous quotes to journalists; ministers pushing themselves into the leadership conversation: the infamous ‘Grid of Sh*t’ intended to destabilise Rishi’s Number 10.
None of this was about party unity, none of it was good for the party, and all of it contributed to the scale of our defeat in July. We were made to look like juvenile out-of-touch delinquents.
For those of us who have spent decades trooping around our local areas, leaflets in hand, trying to get our candidates elected, who have spent many evenings and weekends raising money for the party and encouraging others to help; the behaviour in Westminster has been a constant source of fury and frustration.
It cannot go on.
So, if, like me, you think party unity is a key driver of how you’ll vote in this contest and is the future of our political and intellectual renaissance and you care about the Conservative Party more than personal ambition – you must vote for the person who’ll deliver unity – as I will.
