Voters have had enough – it’s time the Conservative Party offered real change
3 min read
Next year will bring a general election. The Conservative Party is up against it and needs to say something compelling if voters are to stop thinking, “enough”.
That means real Conservative policies. If we are to prove that more tax, more net zero, and more migration under Labour are bad for Britain, we have to stop offering them ourselves.
I hope that this autumn we will see a change of tone from the government, one that makes it possible to win back the nearly 60 per cent of our 2019 voters who, as I write, according to YouGov, aren’t planning to vote Conservative next time.
If we are to prove that more tax, more net zero, and more migration under Labour are bad for Britain, we have to stop offering them ourselves
We should work urgently to present voters with not just recognisably Conservative policies, but a genuine vision for how the country could be different: boosting economic growth, increasing productivity and stopping the endless hectoring and nannying. It will require a level of ambition that goes well beyond what’s currently on the table, but that’s what’s necessary to deal with our deep-seated problems before they get any worse.
We need an ambitious plan to return tax and spending back to the historical levels of around a third of GDP, well down from current levels which are the highest since the Second World War. It’s very welcome that the government has pushed back prohibitions on petrol cars and gas boilers. But much more is needed for a rational push to net zero: notably, allowing fracking in the United Kingdom once again, and a programme to build new low-carbon modern gas and zero-carbon nuclear power stations to combat the energy crisis.
We should pause for breath to absorb high levels of immigration and rebuild social cohesion. That means reducing legal migration to 100,000 over three years and keeping it there for a decade.
We should make a major national effort to deal with our backlog of four million missing homes. That means identifying housebuilding areas, mainly in south-east England, including on the green belt, and if necessary driving them through by a national referendum on the whole plan.
I would like to see a Royal Commission to set out a route to transform the NHS into a European-style social insurance system over the next generation.
The Equality Act should be abolished and replaced with a simple non-discrimination duty, a ban on positive discrimination and quotas, and an end to government spending and law-making on diversity. Government should forbid medical transitioning to the opposite sex below the age of 18. It should also abolish concepts such as “hate” or “harmful” speech and pass a free speech act protecting free speech.
Finally, the government machine needs modernising, with laws to give ministers and Parliament genuine control over appointments and budgets. We should also review the scope of devolution and make it much harder to hold a Scottish independence referendum. I think it likely we will need referendums soon on the European Convention on Human Rights and on continuing the so-called Windsor Framework arrangements for Northern Ireland.
Voters have had enough dither. They want action and real change. It’s time the Conservative Party offered it to them.
Lord Frost, Conservative peer, former minister and chief negotiator for exiting the European Union
PoliticsHome Newsletters
Get the inside track on what MPs and Peers are talking about. Sign up to The House's morning email for the latest insight and reaction from Parliamentarians, policy-makers and organisations.
