Robert Jenrick (Image: Getty)
The 2019 election was a seismic moment in British politics. Across the midlands and the north of England, seats turned blue for the first time in generations. In many cases, well over a century.
It didn’t come as a surprise to me. As Communities Secretary I visited more constituencies on the campaign trail than anyone else. Knocking on doors, I met voter after voter who were flipping from Labour to the .
In Corbyn they saw a hard-Left radical, ashamed of our country and with a soft spot for Britain’s enemies; in Boris they saw a leader promising to upend the political status quo and bring opportunities across the country. It was a potent message that united millions of ’small c’ and delivered the Tory party an 80 seat majority.
It presented us with a unique opportunity to reshape our country. And we set to work with zeal. We delivered freeports in the Midlands, Teesside and Liverpool. We massively expanded apprenticeships, with hundreds of high-quality programmes in good jobs, like nursing, engineering and law.
I devolved power to local communities, where decision makers know far better than men in grey suits in Whitehall. Through the Towns Fund I directed record funding to previously forgotten areas. And by taking on the blockers I got housing starts up to their highest level since 1987.
But we were buffeted by the huge global shocks of the pandemic and energy crisis that blew us of course. Global inflation made it incredibly difficult to improve real living standards.
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The truth is we squandered the realignment: we didn’t do enough to deliver on the promises we made to voters in 2019. We didn’t shift our economy to the high-wage, high-productivity model made possible by . We cared deeply about the NHS and provided it with record funding, but outputs didn’t improve as we spurned systemic reforms. And we made the disastrous decision to create an immigration system that was even more liberal than the one before it.
Voters who leant their votes to us in 2019 abandoned us to Reform on our right and to Labour and Lib Dems on the left.
There are some that say for the to regain power we need to focus on efforts on the South East and the shires. I reject that entirely. I am determined to win back the Red Wall and I believe we can.
We do so by listening to the country, accepting our shortcomings, and showing the country we have changed. During this campaign, I have not shied away from telling the hard truths – difficult though they are.
Under my leadership, the Conservative Party would be a truly national party, working to spread opportunity to every corner of this country. I believe more passionately than ever that talent is spread evenly in this country, but that opportunities are not.
I joined the Conservative Party in Wolverhampton aged 16. For 10 years I have represented the proud midlands constituency of Newark. Small town England is in my blood and these are the people I entered politics to represent.
Under me, the Conservative Party will once again stand for working Britain. The working class boys struggling at school; the deprived towns Westminster neglects; the small businesses that power this country forward drowning in red tape and tax. It will be the trade union for the British people.
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We will leave the European Convention on Human Rights so we can protect the public and secure our borders. We will cap migration in the tens of thousands to end the cycle of broken promises. We will drive growth by densifying our cities, pursuing cheap, reliable energy and getting people off welfare into work. We will treat the NHS as a public service to be reformed, not a religion to be worshipped.
Labour are set to disappoint communities yet again. Ed Miliband’s fantasy energy policy will see bills spiralling and destroying British industry. They’re doubling down on Blair’s disastrous higher education policy that prioritises low-value degrees, rather than real-life skills. And they’re already rolling the pitch for tax rises in the Autumn Budget to pay for their above-inflation pay rises for their union paymasters.
I am under no under illusions that there is no mountain to climb. But I know that if we truly change as a party and unite around the serious answers to the big challenges facing the country, we can consign this disastrous Labour Government to one term.