Jack Rankin is the MP for Windsor
Before the exit poll had even dropped at 10 pm on polling day, the Conservatives were already being invited to ‘reflect’ on what had gone wrong for the Party. In reality, the writing had been on the wall for months.
Some are wondering why the leadership election is taking us three months and assume it’s because we are still trying to fathom why we lost the election so disastrously. But the truth is staring us all in the face – we had the reasons shouted at us over and over again on the doorsteps during many brutal months of campaigning. We lost because we repeatedly failed to deliver what we promised in 2019.
We said that we would secure our borders and cut immigration, and we did the opposite.
We said we would strengthen the NHS, but despite record funding, patient outcomes remained the same.
We said we would grow the economy and keep taxes low, and we manifestly did not.
If you repeatedly break your promises to the electorate, you will be punished.
Only elderly voters prevented the Conservative Party from becoming extinct in 2024. Upwards is not the only potential future direction of travel for us. We fell off the cliff and are hanging by our fingertips.
We need the next three months not to figure out why we lost but to reflect on how we change.
Young people, families, and the middle-aged all rejected us emphatically at the ballot box. The crossover point at which someone is more likely to vote Conservative is now 70 years old. There is no future for our Party until we once again have the support from all regions and all age groups of aspirational voters.
The reason we did not deliver on our promises to the electorate was that when we were faced with difficult decisions, we fudged them. Instead of confronting them head on we blundered through with our large majority. We didn’t make the long-term decisions. We dodged difficult reforms. We didn’t challenge failed orthodoxies.
Britain is at an inflection point. At home, our public services are struggling, and abroad our adversaries are re-arming at unprecedented speed. We need to deliver serious change to set the country back on the right path. This can be delivered, as it was by Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s, without resorting to populism.
But to enact that change, we need to collectively sign up to a set of core strong principles (a creed) and put forward a leader with the ability to articulate them – and the conviction and intelligence to turn that rhetoric into victory and action.
With this in mind, it is clear to me that Robert Jenrick is the right person to lead us forward together. On our biggest failure – immigration – he is the only candidate with experience and credibility. He personally secured the largest ever reduction in legal migration, and when it was clear the Government lacked the political will to produce an effective Rwanda deterrent, he resigned on principle. The amendments he tabled to make the policy effective, backed by over 60 MPs, have since been vindicated.
Of all the leadership contenders, Robert is best placed to communicate these issues to voters. His succinct rebuttal of Labour’s King’s Speech and his viral video on migration with Neil O’Brien has shown that he is a powerful communicator.
But to win, we need to regain support from both flanks of our party. A necessary condition to this is showing voters that we share their anger about unrestricted immigration, that we will address it and we will do so without alienating voters with needlessly provocative, populist language.
Jenrick has shown that he understands how to achieve this delicate balance in presentation, persuading not provoking. We have done too much governing left and shouting right – we need a firm hand on core conservative issues, demonstrating competence, and then moderate language which builds our electoral coalition.
As well as winning the confidence of those on the Right and Left of that coalition, we need to rapidly improve our standing with younger voters if we are to secure a political future.
I’m 31 and got married seven years ago: Too often it feels like everyone who voted for us under the age of 35 came to my wedding. But the problem is no longer under 35s, but under 65s. This is nothing short of catastrophic for the future of the Party.
Judge a man by his prior actions. Jenrick is the only leadership candidate who has shown during his time as Secretary of State for Housing that he is committed to taking the tough decisions needed to lower the first rungs of ladder the opportunity and get Britain building. He paid a heavy political price during the last Conservative government for promoting a zonal planning system based on promoting urban growth areas whilst protecting the Green Belt.
He also delivered in practice. During his tenure, in 2021, Britain reached its highest rate of housebuilding in almost forty years. In opposition, this will compare very favourably against the record that Labour seems set to create for themselves – lowering targets in London and other urban areas while increasing them in the North West to protect their own NIMBY members in Parliament. This is a golden opportunity to start bringing young people back inside the Conservative movement by being the true party of home ownership.
There are those in the Party today who would like to wave these challenges away because they are challenging, either by implying that immigration is not a causal factor in the housing and cost of living crisis – or by trying to out-Nimby the Lib Dems in the Home Counties to hold on to what few seats we have left. Both approaches are quite literally demographic dead-ends for the Party. Jenrick is the only candidate who has been consistently talking about the need to appeal to young people. Having recently been to Canada and visited Pierre Pollievere he has a blueprint for our renewal that has been proven to work.
Without this renewal, we will wither and die as a political force.The only credible alternative to political decline is that which is being put forward by Jenrick. The status quo or tinkering around the edges or bland calls for unity without a unifying creed will not be enough. Jenrick offers real, brave change – and that is why I will be supporting him for leader.
