Tom Hunt is the former MP for Ipswich
The scale of our defeat in July election means it’s critical that, as a party, we take a long, hard look at ourselves. No one single factor can explain the awful results we saw across the country.
However, if I was forced to pick the main issue, I would without doubt suggest our repeated failure on immigration over many years. The failure to control our borders and reduce immigration destroyed the bond of trust that there had been between our Party and millions of our voters. It will take many, many years to regain this trust, and win those voters back.
Virtually every poll I saw of 2019 Conservative voters ahead of the July election made it abundantly clear that amongst these crucial voters who gave us that resounding victory, immigration and asylum were by far the most important issues. Just last month I saw the latest YouGov tracker had immigration and asylum as the top issue for all voters.
However, I didn’t need this polling to tell me how crucial an issue immigration was. I knocked on thousands of doors in Ipswich during the July election and it couldn’t have been made any clearer how important an issue it was.
And of course, you don’t need to be Einstein to work out the devastating impact the rise of Reform had on our electoral fortunes. Latest polling shows that, for 91 per cent of Reform voters, immigration is a top issue. In some respects, the rise of Reform was the main story of the election and the main explanation for why we tanked so badly.
I think it’s wrong to assume that the threat from Reform has peaked. When push came to shove, many voters gave us a stay of execution. If we do not show these voters we have listened, shown the humility to admit our mistakes, and fundamentally changed, then Reform will only grow as a political force.
Reflecting upon all of this it’s therefore obvious that any path back to being electorally competitive in future rests upon regaining credibility on immigration.
Sadly I fear that the penny hasn’t dropped for some and there is some complacency. Some seem to think that all we need to do is just “unite”. Of course, we must end the infighting and come together, but we must also ask ourselves difficult questions about how it all went so badly wrong.
We can’t simply wait for Labour to mess up (which hasn’t taken long) and assume the voters will turn to us again to govern in the not-too-distant future. I see such thinking as deluded and dangerously complacent. Yes, Labour is already being found out and will continue to be found out but it’s wrong to assume that we will inevitably be the beneficiaries of this.
Which brings me to the Conservative leadership contest. If we’re to recover as a Party and regain the trust of the millions of voters who deserted us it’s an imperative that we regain credibility on immigration. It’s hard for me to see us being able to do this with a leader who doesn’t have credibility on the issue.
There is one candidate who stands out in a positive way when it comes to the credibility question: Robert Jenrick. He saw the reality of the situation up close and personal in the Home Office. He knew what action was necessary on both illegal and legal migration and fought for them behind the scenes.
When I published a paper with the New Conservatives Group of MPs outlining 10 steps that could be taken to significantly cut net legal migration, it was Jenrick who won the battle in Government to deliver them and went further in some areas. The changes will mean legal migration will fall by approximately 300,000 – the biggest-ever reduction.
And when Jenrick was unable to implement what was needed he resigned from Government. He wasn’t prepared to introduce a Bill to Parliament that he knew wasn’t strong enough to “Stop the boats”.
I worked closely with Jenrick on the amendments he tabled to the Rwanda Bill that would have made it strong enough generate a deterrent. Regretfully we didn’t win the day and the Government refused to adopt his amendments.
This leadership contest can’t all be about one issue. Crucially, Jenrick is not a one-trick pony. He has run the most energetic leadership campaign to date and has spoken out forcefully on several different policy areas, from the NHS to the economy and housing. But, like me, he gets the centrality of our failures on immigration to our electoral defeat and the necessity of demonstrating unequivocally to the millions of voters whose trust we broke that we truly do get it on this vital issue.
I believe it will be next to impossible to heal the schism that has opened up on the right of British politics between ourselves and Reform. As the only candidate to commit to leaving the ECHR and introducing a legally binding cap of legal migration in the tens of thousands or lower, Jenrick is clear he means business.
With Jenrick as our leader, I’m confident the Conservative Party can recover from the devastating electoral blow that was inflicted on us at the July election and that once again we can be the natural home for patriotic Brits who crave border control and a sensible approach to immigration that truly puts them first.
It’s for this reason that I’m backing his campaign to be the next leader of the Conservative Party.
