Miriam Cates: Britain won’t change course until our very best are prepared to serve in Parliament

Miriam Cates is the former MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge.

If Britain is to be saved, our next government will have to be the best this country has ever had. A bold statement perhaps, but it is increasingly impossible to deny that Britain is in terminal decline.

Newspapers have always made for depressing reading but over recent months there has been a vibe shift, with the media increasingly telling the story of the end of Britain as we know it. Of course headline writers are notoriously prone to exaggeration, but from reports of deepening fiscal black holes to revelations about the consequences of rapid demographic change, it is the numbers, not the narrative, that prove the crisis is real.

Over the last 30 years – and especially the last five – an almost unbelievable number of foreigners have settled in this country: one in six people living in Britain were not born here, and a third of births in 2024 were to foreign mothers. Given the British state’s shameful inability to remove anyone who is in the UK illegally, and the fact that many new arrivals are shortly due to be granted Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR), unprecedented demographic change is all but locked in; projections show that by 2063, ethnic (white) Britons will be a minority in the United Kingdom.

Whether or not one thinks that immigration is ‘good’ for Britain is irrelevant. With immigration levels this high, there will soon be no such thing as Britain. The whole idea of the nation state, an independent self-governing people united by loyalty to a common history, tradition and culture, is rendered null and void when such a significant proportion of a country’s inhabitants share not its history, traditions, nor culture.

Immigration is not the only issue threatening to break Britain. Economic markers show the UK is careering towards bankruptcy. The Government’s annual expenditure has exceeded its income every year for the last quarter of a century, setting us on a trajectory to register a public debt of 270 per cent of GDP by 2070. The uniquely expensive terms of Britain’s borrowing mean that voters are already footing the bill for £107 billion in interest payments each year.

Even with such vast levels of immigration, 50 years of below-replacement birth rates have left fewer and fewer working age people to foot the bill for the growing numbers of retirees. Pensions, the NHS, and the welfare state are becoming unaffordable. We are headed for a future of shortages, inflation and poverty.

I’ve painted a depressing but sadly accurate picture of Britain’s medium-term future. Considering the ‘achievements’ of the first year of the Starmer Government, it would be foolish to hope that the Labour Party has what (and who) it takes to turn things around. But at the next general election, a new Conservative or Reform government, or a coalition of the two, could have the opportunity to reverse the decline.

Our country has many serious problems: unpunished crime, welfare dependency, epidemic family breakdown, and housing shortages to name just a few. But before these can be addressed, the next government must restore the foundations of our borders and economy.

The first task will be to stop all but the most essential legal immigration and to reform the process of ILR. Britain’s membership of the ECHR must cease and the Rwanda scheme or a similar programme revived to end the scandal of illegal migration. The government must also find a way to deport those who are here illegally or foreign nationals who have committed crimes.

On the economy, tough decisions must be taken. Like a household that has for years been living beyond its means, we must accept the necessity of tightening our belts. The triple lock must be scrapped, the state pension means tested. The responsibility for providing for the young, the old, and the sick must gradually return to families and communities with state support awarded in only the most exceptional circumstances.

These measures may sound radical but they are not. Until 1970, immigration levels were low and, by and large, our nation lived within its means. It was not ‘diversity’ that built Britain but prudence, sacrifice and a public commitment to Christian values.

Yet for the last half century we have been governed by many whose apparent loyalties are not to the British nation or its culture but to a vision of global liberalism. What else can explain the scandalous situation whereby working class British voters already beleaguered by chronic inflation, housing shortages and two tier justice, are forced to pay the hotel bills of foreign sex offenders who have broken into our country?

We have an elite who, in the words of philosopher Yoram Hazony in his book The Virtue of Nationalism:

“[T]ake the unity of their own state entirely for granted. As a consequence they tend to disdain the kinds of efforts that are needed to maintain the cohesion and independence of the state, happily advocating for policies that work directly to destroy its cohesion and independence, all the while believing that the state can sustain all this and yet remain sound as it was before.”

The political choices that must be made by the next government are simple, but they will be difficult to execute. Our institutions are led by those who prioritise global liberal values, such as human rights law, multiculturalism, and minority rule, over the national interest. The last government’s sensible plan to process illegal immigrants in Rwanda was struck down by the Supreme Court on human rights grounds; institutions ranging from the Department for Education to the police suppressed the truth about the Pakistani rape gangs, prioritising the reputation of multiculturalism over fighting crime and keeping children safe.

But to reverse Britain’s decline, a future government will have to contend not only with our institutions, but also its own MPs. As both Sir Keir Starmer and Boris Johnson have discovered, it is not enough to win a large parliamentary majority.

Planning reform proved impossible under the last government because backbenchers were too sensitive to their constituents’ concerns, And while Rishi Sunak promised to ‘stop the boats’, too few Tory MPs were willing to vote for the necessary legislation to make this happen. Starmer faces similar problems on the economy, being forced by his backbenchers to u-turn on even the most limited attempts to reduce public spending.

Even if a right-leaning government is elected in 2029 with a sizeable majority, recent experience should make us pessimistic about a new prime minister’s ability to deliver the necessary reforms.

Given the views of its voter base, it can be assumed that Reform MPs will hold the line on immigration and leaving the ECHR. But when it comes to passing legislation to remove the estimated one million people who are in the UK illegally, even Farage himself is lukewarm on this issue. Will his MPs be able to withstand the pressure when the difficulty of the task becomes apparent, and when genuinely heartbreaking individual cases arrive in their surgeries?

On the economy, we should be even less confident that a 2029 Reform/Conservative government could convince its MPs to vote for the necessary reforms. If anything, Prime Minister Farage may have more problems managing his MPs’ expectations on public spending than Rachel Reeves, given his party’s commitments to raising the personal tax allowance, scrapping inheritance tax, reducing VAT and nationalising utilities. Kemi Badenoch has indicated that she believes the triple lock may have to be reconsidered but there have been no such hints from the Reform leadership.

The problem is not that MPs are bad people; on the contrary, most are hard working, intelligent and in politics for noble reasons. Yet under the current perverse incentives for parliamentarians, accumulating social media ‘likes’ and getting pot holes fixed is more rewarding, and more encouraged by the whips, than laying thoughtful amendments to complex legislation.

Consequently, the House of Commons attracts people who may be brilliant local campaigners but are often lacking in even the most basic understanding of the constitution, economics, and even statistics. And when our professions and public servants are so steeped in the narrow liberal view of ‘compassion’, it’s no surprise that many MPs believe the role of government is to do whatever it takes to reduce individual suffering in the short term.

Consequently, debates in parliament are often dominated by emotional “whataboutmeism” rather than the hard-headed reasoning that is essential for competent decision making for the good of the nation. (Of course there are many superb and courageous MPs in this parliament as there were in the last. But politics is a numbers game, and conservatives have been outnumbered for some time.)

The good news is that there is a small but sufficient number of individuals who are up to the task of rescuing Britain, individuals who see through the failings of liberalism, understand the scale of the challenge and are developing intelligent legislative solutions that anticipate the practical, political and legal challenges ahead.

These people can be found in right-leaning think tanks, business, academia and the media; this week’s publication by Policy Exchange in partnership with Suella Braverman on the details of how we should leave the ECHR is a fine example. If enough of these competent people were elected to the next parliament, there is every chance that the necessary reforms could be implemented.

Readers may baulk at the idea of choosing new MPs from the so-called Westminster bubble, pointing to the failures of the current elite. But let’s not pretend that someone who has been a successful single-issue campaigner or a diligent local councillor will be as effective a legislator as someone who has spent years studying the legal, political and philosophical causes of Britain’s decline and how to fix them. We do need a political elite; but we should replace our failing liberal elite with a national conservative one.

The problem is that almost none of the people who are sorely needed in Parliament actually want to become MPs. And who can blame them? Britain’s best and brightest can earn more money and find more stable employment elsewhere. They have no desire to make themselves and their families figures of public hate; they are uninterested in the ‘super councillor’ role of a modern MP, sorting out neighbour disputes and campaigning for stricter speed limits outside schools.

In the long term, the pay and conditions and public understanding of an MP’s role will have to change, but that’s not going to happen before 2029. We therefore need our most prominent conservative thinkers to make a frankly extraordinary personal sacrifice on behalf of the nation and put themselves forward for election.

Political parties and local associations have a vital role to play too. Britain’s urgent need is not for MPs who have demonstrated a lifelong commitment to delivering leaflets or a rare talent for donating raffle prizes. In 2029, an MP’s proficiency at opening village fetes will be considerably less important than their understanding of the impact of Blairite human rights legislation. Selection committees and party officials have a duty to choose their candidates in the national interest.

Parliament may be less powerful than it once was, but it is still sovereign, the only place where Britain’s laws can be made, amended and repealed. Our think tanks, academic, legal and media institutions are vital to Britain’s political ecosystem, but after the next election we need our best conservative thinkers on the green benches, not lobbying and advising from outside. Serious times call for serious politicians; we need Britain’s very best to step forward.

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