Robert Jenrick: We must empower members to rebuild the Conservative Party as a mass

Robert Jenrick is a former Minister for Immigration and is the MP for Newark.

Last Thursday, we suffered our Party’s worst-ever electoral defeat. We must now reflect, in the cold light of day, on what went wrong.

The party Chairman has commissioned a review of the campaign. This is the right thing to do and mirrors the steps taken after the disastrous 2017 general election.

But for the review to be as productive as possible it must have a broad remit that goes beyond the campaign run by CCHQ. Our party’s problems did not begin with a rain-soaked speech. Nor did we lose the election because of a slogan, a logo, or a soundbite. We must ask ourselves deeper questions about the record we were standing on, and the ground campaign across the country.

In no small part, our loss was attributable to the gradual hollowing out of our party organisation. We were outspent and outmaneuvered on the ground.

Astonishingly, some have argued that the solution to this is to disenfranchise our members. This could not be more wrong: the answer is to empower them.

Party members are not to blame for our shortcomings. They didn’t set government policy. They didn’t sit by as we failed to deliver what we had promised the public on immigration, taxation, and the NHS.

They pounded the streets. They knocked on doors. They donated their hard-earned money. And many of them did this despite being ignored when decisions were being taken in Westminster. Many are keen to say, our party is a big tent. But we should never forget who holds that tent up.

As we take the fight to Labour, we’ll need our membership to play an even larger role in the life of our party.

The merits of the voluntary party and colleagues in Parliament working hand-in-glove are clear. My seat, Newark, was – according to most MRP polls – due to be lost to Labour. However, the combination of a distinctive conservative message and a campaign-focussed local association meant it was the only seat in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire that we held. I owe a huge debt to those incredibly generous volunteers. They were, and remain the lifeblood of our party.

To turn things around we must breathe life into the party with a renewed role and respect for members. That means revisiting the calls for greater party democracy that have been swirling for decades.

I know them well. I joined the party in 1997 in Wolverhampton where Conservatives were thin on the ground. I was an association chairman for four years.  I fought a marginal seat. Then, in 2014, I fought and won a by-election – taking the fight to Nigel Farage – where thousands of party members campaigned for me.

Throughout that time, the need for greater party democracy has been acknowledged but ultimately ignored. If anything, the party has gone backwards.

What we saw before the election may have represented the nadir. It was wrong for local associations to have handpicked lists of Downing Street advisers foisted upon them. That can never be allowed to happen again.

I believe any Conservative party member should be able to apply for selection. We must scrap the approved candidates list which has morphed beyond all recognition.  CCHQ’s role should be limited to ensuring that candidates hold conservative principles and values, can perform the job of being an MP, meet the required moral and ethical standards expected of those in public life, and that local associations run fair and open contests.

Beyond that, choices should be returned to the members, as was the case in the not-so-distant past. Local associations – made up of longstanding councillors and activists – do not need to have their hands held.

We need CCHQ to focus on what it’s there for: helping to win elections. Given the perilous position we face, and with the threat of Reform, every seat needs support. In the past MPs have been returned on the back of a successful campaign, only to see CCHQ’s support dry up. This must end.

We should keep all new MPs with a majority of less than 5,000, on an ‘Incumbency Program’ with their campaign managers remaining in place, and ongoing digital and campaigning support. They should also help train members so that they have the confidence to design and deliver campaigns locally.

We need to select candidates in winnable seats far earlier. And we should put our arms around the many great candidates who stood this time and lost, due to no fault of their own, and wish to stand again. They have so much more to contribute to our party.

We must value those party professionals, whether at CCHQ or experienced agents in the country, who know how to campaign, build our membership, and nurture activists. Many feel disrespected and overlooked. They see cronyism and short-termism in place of meritocracy. They see bloated bureaucracy, detached from the specific circumstances at the local level.

Centre-right parties elsewhere in the West are growing. We must build up our membership by reaching out to all those who share our values of whom there are millions. And that must include younger people, who we need to enthuse, like never before. We only need to look at Pierre Poilievre and the Canadian Conservatives to see what is possible.

Finally, it’s time we set out formally the principles that underpin our party. Yes, the Party should be a broad church, but it must have a common creed. The foundation for a Conservative revival and any successful programme of government is a clear declaration of the fundamental truths that conservatives with a small ‘c’ believe in. As Margaret Thatcher said in her 1996 Keith Joseph Lecture, that’s the first lesson that needs to be drawn about the rethinking of Conservatism.

As my friend Mark Francois recalls an older party member telling him, when you put on a blue rosette, you should know what it stands for. And when someone spots it as they open their door to you, they should know it too. Neither has been true of late. It’s time to change that.

The Conservative Party doesn’t just need root-and-branch reform, it needs to be rebuilt. Rebuilt from the ground up as a mass movement of conservatives, united in a common endeavour and rooted in our communities. I’m convinced it can be done. It will be the most important task of the years ahead. And that work must start now.