“There’s no easy popularity in what we are proposing but it is fundamentally sound, I believe people accept there’s no real alternative.” So said Margaret Thatcher at the dawn of her premiership.
Most Conservatives will nod along: doing what is right in the short term is preferable to what is purely popular. Having a clear set of values backed up by evidence, grounded in tested beliefs, produces the best policies and governments – which, ultimately, prove the most popular.
Which brings us to PopCon, the latest pressure group to launch within the Conservative Party. Following the arrival of the New Conservatives caucus and National Conservatism conference, Popular Conservatism came into existence thanks to Liz Truss to take forward the fight for her political ideas.
The group set out its stall with tub-thumping rhetoric, calling for a “fight back” against the left-wing infiltration of this country’s institutions while promoting the ideal of individual freedom.
Take a look at PopCon’s mini-manifesto and it is a curious discombobulation. The group calls for “democratic and robust control over our borders”, something no right-leaning mind will object to.
With net migration at record-breaking and unsustainable levels, nine out of ten constituencies want lower migration and are willing to adopt tough measures to achieve it. Tackling this is foundational to any Tory revival. Nor will you find many on the right arguing against slashing “the burden of tax and regulation stifling our economy and raising the costs of living”. All Conservatives want a streamlined and efficient state.
PopCon’s commitment to an end of net zero “zealtory” with pragmatism in energy policy to provide better security and low prices was muddled. Contrast the Government’s approach to delivering net zero in a sustainable way to Labour’s thinking on the £28bn of green investment, and it’s obvious where the fanaticism actually lies.
Energy security and low prices will be achieved through renewables, which offer both the cheapest energy and the way to power Britain domestically long into the future. With targets set in law, polling shows that scrapping them would prove deeply unpopular with Tory supporters and the wider electorate.
If Conservatives want to pursue a truly popular conservatism, other more pressing priorities are more likely to revive the party’s fortunes. First off is dealing with the housing crisis – a property-owning democracy is more likely to be a Conservative democracy, and there was a notable lack of talk about housebuilding from PopCon (as Truss ally Sir Simon Clarke has noted).
Whether it was Harold Macmillian’s successful pledge in the 1950s to build 300,000 homes a year, or the Right to Buy revolution of the early 1980s, younger voters are enticed to conservatism when they are offered a stake in society. For all of the chunter about planning reform and getting the housing market moving, the centre right must be more ambitious. Building more homes, in a sustainable conservative way, is at the heart of any economic comeback – let alone a popularity revival.
What was also lacking from the PopCon was any mention of frayed social fabric, especially antisocial behaviour. Although the Government has succeeded in recruiting 20,000 police officers, and the overall crime is down over the past decade, the rise in non-violent crimes is tarnishing the fabric of our communities and undermining their growth prospects.
Particularly in those towns needing levelling up – home to many of Truss’s “secret conservatives” – voters are right to be concerned about the places around them. The Conservative Party is always at its most popular when it offers security in whatever form it comes.
But the biggest challenge facing Britain right now is that the state is suffering from malaise and dysfunction. There is a risk that too much effort is spent performatively attacking institutions and not enough thought put to how they can work better. One of Lord Cameron’s successes in opposition was forming an agenda about reshaping the state to make it more effective, with education and welfare being the most notable examples.
A deeper acknowledgement of the unique demographic and economic pressures we are facing is vital to figuring out solutions. Above all, Conservatives need to resist any swing towards ideological dogma while remaining adaptable to what the country needs.
Four years ago, the party tapped into a deep vein of popularity by pledging to reduce immigration, invest in health and infrastructure, and deliver equality of opportunity and economic growth across the country. Some of these were natural right-wing instincts, others less so, but Boris Johnson delivered a stonking majority with a modern conservatism speaking to what the country needs.
Conservatives should also remember that popularity in politics is much like happiness: not something you can simply achieve, but a by-product of other actions.
Being popular for popularity’s sake will not resolve the country or party’s problems. We need more houses, refreshed infrastructure, reduced immigration, more productive industries, better investment in science and technology.
PopCon might be right that the economy must grow faster, but a better debate is about how exactly we do that. Onward’s own Future of Conservatism project has argued that people want freedom, but they also want security and opportunity. All of these instincts must be balanced out with honesty about the challenges ahead. What the country needs now is different to 2019, and especially to 1979. There were no shortcuts then, and there aren’t any now.
Sebastian Payne is the director of the centre right think-tank Onward
How to make the Tories popular
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08.02.2024
“There’s no easy popularity in what we are proposing but it is fundamentally sound, I believe people accept there’s no real alternative.” So said Margaret Thatcher at the dawn of her premiership.
Most Conservatives will nod along: doing what is right in the short term is preferable to what is purely popular. Having a clear set of values backed up by evidence, grounded in tested beliefs, produces the best policies and governments – which, ultimately, prove the most popular.
Which brings us to PopCon, the latest pressure group to launch within the Conservative Party. Following the arrival of the New Conservatives caucus and National Conservatism conference, Popular Conservatism came into existence thanks to Liz Truss to take forward the fight for her political ideas.
The group set out its stall with tub-thumping rhetoric, calling for a “fight back” against the left-wing infiltration of this country’s institutions while promoting the ideal of individual freedom.
Take a look at PopCon’s mini-manifesto and it is a curious discombobulation. The group calls for “democratic and robust control over our borders”, something no right-leaning mind will object to.
With net migration at record-breaking and unsustainable levels, nine out of ten constituencies want lower migration and are willing to adopt tough measures to achieve it. Tackling this is foundational to any Tory revival. Nor will you........
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