Simon Fell was the MP for Barrow and Furness from 2019 to 2024, and was the Prime Minister’s Anti-Fraud Champion.
It’s hard to believe, but we’re only a few weeks on from the bruising general election campaign. The heat and noise of early July already feels like a fever dream.
Despite a strong record of delivery in seats like Barrow and Furness, by the time the election was called people had stopped listening to us. Voters don’t much like politics being forced on them, and I believe that we lost the right to govern in their minds because the news was too much about us, and not nearly enough about how we were going to improve their lives.
Labour won and won big, the Liberal Democrats nibbled away at former strongholds, and Reform took swathes of people who put their trust in us for the first time in 2019, costing us dozens of seats. The job of rebuilding will not be easy – and, regardless of whether you think the term is nonsense or not, Sir Keir Starmer now has his supermajority.
So we need a strong Opposition to hold them to account. We owe that to the country. To provide it, we need to move beyond the noise and division that has all too often typified the Conservative Party. That means uniting, being disciplined and driven by a sense of duty and a desire to deliver for the nation, and building the coalition of voters who supported us in the past.
Doing this now, to build a formidable (and crucially, credible) Conservative opposition, is the only way we can hope to regain the trust of voters and return to government at the next election.
I strongly believe that James Cleverly is the person best placed to do just that. I’ve worked alongside him in the Home Office, seeing first-hand the leadership he displayed with international partners at first Global Fraud Summit in March. As a Member of the Home Affairs Committee, I saw him up close as Home Secretary, working day after day with parliamentary colleagues as well as the Civil Service to keep the British public safe and secure.
And as an aspiring candidate in 2019, I’ve seen him with activists and the public: he’s charming, funny, decisive, a brilliant communicator, and a natural leader.
We won’t win by aping Reform, and nor will we do so by simply rehashing the language of David Cameron from over a decade ago. We need a thoughtful and charismatic leader who can unite the parliamentary party, energise our activists, refresh our policies, and who will hold Labour’s feet to the fire.
James has the character, drive, and record to do just that. He will rebuild our Party and our reputation, and start us on the path to winning back the Red Wall. I am very glad to be backing him.
