Message to all Conservative Party Leadership Candidates

Message to all Conservative Party Leadership Candidates

by John Strafford

We are perhaps witnessing the greatest betrayal of democracy in the history of the United Kingdom.   Democracy is the process by which you determine the will of a majority of the people.   The will of a majority of the people was determined in the referendum on the European Union in 2016.   The majority - 17.4 million people voted to leave.

The grass roots membership of the Conservative party has been betrayed. But this betrayal is not a recent phenomenon. It has been going on steadily for 20 years, as the party hierarchy has become increasingly unaccountable to the members it appears to despise.

It is time for ordinary Conservatives to fight back and reassert control of their party – or very soon there won't be a Conservative party at all. It is on the point of imploding.

There is now a gulf between the Westminster elite and the rank-and-file. Brexit brought that to a head: while 70 per cent of the members wanted to leave the European Union, 60 per cent of the parliamentary party were solidly in favour of remaining. This contradiction was always going to be insupportable in the long term.

If we don't leave the EU, or if we end up with a broken Brexit, I feel sadly certain, that large numbers of members will cut up their cards and quit.

It is happening already. There is widespread disillusionment over Brexit. As the party bigwigs flounder around, desperate to sign up for any sort of Brexit that can win a parliamentary majority, the views of the membership are hardening. A growing number back No Deal, and they don't see their opinions reflected anywhere in the high echelons of their own party.

The situation has become dire. The membership stands at around 160,000 nationwide, with half the constituencies in the UK made up of fewer than 100 people. That is not workable. We can't fight a general election with so few workers on the ground.   What is for sure is that once this Leadership election is over we will probably lose a third of our members, be they Remainers or Leavers, depending on who is elected the Leader of the Party. 

Traditional conservatism was about a small state, low taxes and being strong on law and order and defence. These values have been badly eroded. Instead, we have a surveillance state of regulations upon regulations, where we're told what we can eat, drink, do, say and think. That's a path that leads to a totalitarian state, to tyranny and dictatorship.

The problem is that none of the senior party functionaries – not the chairman, the deputy chairman, the treasurer or any of the rest of them – is elected. And because they are unelected, they are unaccountable to members. The root of the crisis goes back to 1998, when Central Office took over total control of the list of parliamentary candidates, stripping local constituencies of their power.

In many cases, candidates are now simply imposed on local parties, who are told they have no choice but to support the prospective MP they've been given.

And what's the result? Before 1998, the Tories won four out of the previous five general elections. Since 1998, we have failed to win four out of five general elections – with two Labour wins and two hung parliaments. There could be no more damning indictment.

I've been a member of the Beaconsfield constituency for 46 years, and served as its chairman for five. Our current MP is Dominic Grieve, who lost a vote of no confidence quite overwhelmingly at the recent AGM. In a blatant display of contempt for the voters, the party chairman came out and backed Grieve – as though the constituency members had no right to their own opinion.   Would a party chairman elected by and accountable to party members have done so? I doubt it!

Worse was to come. Grieve failed to resign, though 30 years ago the idea of an MP defying a vote of no confidence would have been unthinkable. Instead, he and his supporters claimed that UKIP infiltrators were responsible for his embarrassment.

That's simply a distortion of the truth. The result was not rigged, and to pretend otherwise is yet another insult to ordinary members.

The principle we are fighting for is that party members have the right to determine their parliamentary candidate.

The only hope for the Conservatives now is in radical reform.   We urgently need the following radical reforms:

Five Essential Reforms

1)      The National Convention should be replaced by an Annual General Meeting to which all Party members are invited.

2)      The Chairman of the Party Board, Deputy Chairman, Treasurer, Chairman of the Candidates Committee and Chairman of the Policy Forum should be elected by and accountable to Party members and present Annual reports to the Annual General Meeting.

3)      Constituency Associations should have the right to determine who their Parliamentary Candidate should be with due process and minimum interference by CCHQ, with safeguards for Constituencies where the membership is below a certain level.

4)      Motions for debate should be re-instated at the Party Conference and/or at the Spring Forum.

5)      The Party Constitution should be capable of being changed at a General Meeting of the Party by Party members on the basis of One Member One Vote with a 60% majority. The present minor changes to the Constitution have been under discussion for four years and nothing has happened.

Some good, honest MPs, such as Priti Patel, Steve Baker and Liz Truss, recognise the urgent need for change. But the party has been discussing proposed changes to its constitution for the past four years... and nothing has happened. 

Change must come soon. We are running out of time.   Without change the Conservative Party will slowly drain away down the plug hole of history.

Leadership candidates must support these radical reforms Now!

John Strafford is chairman of the Campaign for Conservative Democracy