I’m standing to be the next leader of our great party and the next Conservative Prime Minister.
We face a decade in opposition during which we will be powerless to stop Labour from pushing through their most radical policies unless we win back the trust of the public and reform the Conservative Party itself. It is frightening to consider what the country might look like in several years if we cannot effectively take the fight to Labour.
I want to provide meaningful opposition during this Parliament and ensure that we have a Conservative government in the next. But winning in Westminster is not enough. We want to see Conservative-led councils elected in next year’s local elections, and a strong Conservative performance in the 2026 Holyrood and Senedd elections.
I put out a survey (which will remain open throughout the leadership contest) to find out what our party members really think, so that their views can form the cornerstone of my plan to reform CCHQ and our party infrastructure. Unsurprisingly 96% said that CCHQ is in need of reform, and fewer than 1% believed that CCHQ had functioned well over the last five years.
As leader, I will conduct a review into CCHQ’s operations. I believe there are five areas to focus upon.
First, to re-establish the training of candidates, activists, and local agents. 60% of members said that the party has not put sufficient resource into training those fighting our ground game: I want to change that.
Second, we need to ensure that local associations have all the help they need from CCHQ to build resilient local campaign structures. Only three per cent of members said that their associations received enough support from CCHQ.
Third, we need to recruit more local activists by working with regional and devolved headquarters.
Fourth, we need to respect the judgement of local associations that are knocking on doors and delivering thousands of leaflets by guaranteeing the ability to shortlist at least one local candidate, and banning CCHQ from imposing a shortlist of one candidate. These are fundamentally undemocratic practices which we should end immediately.
Finally, members should be able to contribute directly to the Party’s policy platform, a move backed by 86 per cent of members.
It is clear that over that last decade we’ve become too Westminster-centric in our way of thinking and campaigning. Too many people in government over the past several years put their careers first, the Party second, and the country a distant third.
People briefed against Conservative colleagues and allowed themselves to become the story, rather than Labour’s shambolic policy proposals. The public noticed this, of course. People could see for themselves that many in Westminster cared much more about their careers than the communities they were meant to represent.
The public noticed that we made promises and did not deliver on them. That is a remarkably effective way to destroy credibility and trust. That same attitude has diminished our capacity to fight and win elections. Tireless and dedicated volunteers, on which the success of the whole Party rests, have not been given the tools they need to succeed.
The Conservative Party is the most successful political party in the modern democratic world. But this proud history does not guarantee a bright future. In the local elections this spring and in the General Election in July, hundreds of talented Conservative MPs and councillors lost their jobs.
If we devote ourselves to Party reform over the next several years, we can reverse those losses and hopefully bring many colleagues back into public life.
Dithering is a luxury we cannot afford.
No leader would be able to accomplish this task on their own. Once the leadership election is over, we all need to pull together and ruthlessly pursue victory at every level of government. We all know exactly how formidable the Conservative Party can be as a campaigning force. We all also know that we are not, at present, the formidable organisation we need to be.
We can rebuild an even stronger Conservative Party if we work together, establish strong links between local campaigners and CCHQ, and abandon the Westminster-centric mindset which has yielded terrible results.
The post Tom Tugendhat: My five steps to making our party an election winning machine again appeared first on Conservative Home.
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Author: Tom Tugendhat MP
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