Sir John Hayes is a former Minister of State who served in six departments, and is MP for South Holland and the Deepings.
In June this year, it will be sixteen years since Tony Blair left office as prime minister.
Over the ten years before that, New Labour took a wrecking ball to Britain’s constitutional settlement, warped our legal system with a human rights framework which prioritised the metropolitan elite’s fringe obsessions over time-honoured common sense, and changed the face of the country through the biggest single wave of mass migration in our history.
It is remarkable that in 2023 we are still in the wake of the long tail of Blairism. Despite the best endeavours of successive Conservative prime ministers since 2010, large parts of the British opinion-forming elite remain enthralled to peculiar preoccupations of the Blair years.
Yet unlike the political class, globalist big business, and various unaccountable transnational organisations – all of which remain captivated by a failed liberal orthodoxy – the British public grasped how much things had changed and cried out for a real alternative. People knew that their own lives had altered, often not for the better.
This was reflected most obviously in the Brexit vote of 2016, where the majority voted to leave the EU because they recognised and embraced the need for a fundamental rethink. Yet this support for a fresh approach was repeatedly frustrated by a liberal establishment unwilling to abandon failed assumptions.
A political realignment may have propelled the Conservative Party to a fifth consecutive term in office in 2019, but the genesis of the electoral coalition that delivered the victory was formed in the referendum three years earlier.
The 2019 coalition of voters transcended the old split between the traditionally Tory rural shires and the post-industrial northern working towns, united by discontent with the decades of mass immigration, the hollowing out of our towns and cities, manufacturing capacity lost in pursuit of cheaper foreign imports, and the apparent cultural self-loathing of too many powerful, guilt-ridden, bourgeois liberals.
People yearned for a self-confident, common-sense government that put the interests of hard-working, law-abiding patriots first.
That is why our Prime Minister is right to focus on immigration: the small boats crisis angers so many, both on the grounds of unfairness and as a symptom of the carelessness of an entitled elite that either can’t or won’t see sense.
Similarly, Rishi Sunak’s decision to thwart SNP’s absurd bill on gender recognition was wise. If a single pivotal moment broadcasts the restoration of common sense to our politics, this may be it. The dangerous and far-reaching implications of legally entitling the denial of biological fact, so allowing men to impose themselves on spaces rightly reserved for women, were untold.
The failure of this law, and the subsequent fall of its chief architect Nicola Sturgeon, hopefully indicates a turning tide.
Recently, the Government prudently announced that single-sex schools will be allowed to reject children of the opposite biological sex without being handicapped by the Equalities Act. The fact that such an obvious step must be celebrated as unexpected good news is symptomatic of how bad things have become.
The problem is not just that the Government is hamstrung by misguided Labour-era legislation of this kind, but that, knowing this, militant activists are using such legal tools to impose their radical agenda on the unwilling majority, thus undermining both the elected government and social cohesion.
Beyond these important conflicts, we must look to the wider battle for the soul of our nation. Whilst those preoccupied with the facile ephemera of social media deny the existence of the culture war they started, we see our national identity, history, and culture being distorted and derided.
Whether it is the literal dismantling of our heritage or the figurative dismantling of our history, literary canon, and much else, this assault strikes at the heart of all we are.
In response, too many small-c conservatives fear confrontation, retreating to safe advocacy of lower taxes and watered-down social liberalism.
But a sugar-free conservatism is not what the public wants, and is certainly not sufficient to address the scale of the problems we face. The status quo of the past two decades has left the public desperate for a government confident enough to respond to the people’s priorities in standing up for Britain. The last thing they want is to be forced to choose between two parties competing for who can be the most liberal.
Neither can we cling to familiar solutions. Too often, debate about our future is overshadowed by the politics of the past; Blair and Margaret Thatcher still provide the framework for how many commentators and politicians perceive politics. Yet challenges we now face are very different from those of the 1970s or even the 1990s.
Unless fundamental change of the kind promised by the Brexit vote and the 2019 election are delivered, people may conclude that representative politics has little meaning. If governing for the common good is displaced by a bland technocracy which neither inspires nor delivers, people may conclude that Parliament has little to offer them. Without nurturing hope or facilitating real change, we risk merely managing decline.
Happily, there are voices, inside of Westminster and beyond, who recognise the need for a different approach. Some will gather at the upcoming National Conservatism Conference in London, where I hope we can articulate a vision of Conservatism that is rooted in the elevation of the people.
This thinking can help the Prime Minister to further strengthen his ambition to fulfil the mandate of 2019, so turning the dream of Britain that so excited our voters then into their reality now. Our borders, culture, families, communities, and institutions must be strengthened to be fit for purpose.
The shadow of Blairism hangs heavy after 16 years. We must find the light of a common-sense Conservatism which nurtures the common good and nourishes the national interest.
The Government, under Sunak’s leadership, is finally starting to deliver again for Britain. With the support of conservative politicians and thinkers, ideas and policies, we can escape from the New Labour legacy to build a new Britain.
Sir John Hayes is a former Minister of State who served in six departments, and is MP for South Holland and the Deepings.
In June this year, it will be sixteen years since Tony Blair left office as prime minister.
Over the ten years before that, New Labour took a wrecking ball to Britain’s constitutional settlement, warped our legal system with a human rights framework which prioritised the metropolitan elite’s fringe obsessions over time-honoured common sense, and changed the face of the country through the biggest single wave of mass migration in our history.
It is remarkable that in 2023 we are still in the wake of the long tail of Blairism. Despite the best endeavours of successive Conservative prime ministers since 2010, large parts of the British opinion-forming elite remain enthralled to peculiar preoccupations of the Blair years.
Yet unlike the political class, globalist big business, and various unaccountable transnational organisations – all of which remain captivated by a failed liberal orthodoxy – the British public grasped how much things had changed and cried out for a real alternative. People knew that their own lives had altered, often not for the better.
This was reflected most obviously in the Brexit vote of 2016, where the majority voted to leave the EU because they recognised and embraced the need for a fundamental rethink. Yet this support for a fresh approach was repeatedly frustrated by a liberal establishment unwilling to abandon failed assumptions.
A political realignment may have propelled the Conservative Party to a fifth consecutive term in office in 2019, but the genesis of the electoral coalition that delivered the victory was formed in the referendum three years earlier.
The 2019 coalition of voters transcended the old split between the traditionally Tory rural shires and the post-industrial northern working towns, united by discontent with the decades of mass immigration, the hollowing out of our towns and cities, manufacturing capacity lost in pursuit of cheaper foreign imports, and the apparent cultural self-loathing of too many powerful, guilt-ridden, bourgeois liberals.
People yearned for a self-confident, common-sense government that put the interests of hard-working, law-abiding patriots first.
That is why our Prime Minister is right to focus on immigration: the small boats crisis angers so many, both on the grounds of unfairness and as a symptom of the carelessness of an entitled elite that either can’t or won’t see sense.
Similarly, Rishi Sunak’s decision to thwart SNP’s absurd bill on gender recognition was wise. If a single pivotal moment broadcasts the restoration of common sense to our politics, this may be it. The dangerous and far-reaching implications of legally entitling the denial of biological fact, so allowing men to impose themselves on spaces rightly reserved for women, were untold.
The failure of this law, and the subsequent fall of its chief architect Nicola Sturgeon, hopefully indicates a turning tide.
Recently, the Government prudently announced that single-sex schools will be allowed to reject children of the opposite biological sex without being handicapped by the Equalities Act. The fact that such an obvious step must be celebrated as unexpected good news is symptomatic of how bad things have become.
The problem is not just that the Government is hamstrung by misguided Labour-era legislation of this kind, but that, knowing this, militant activists are using such legal tools to impose their radical agenda on the unwilling majority, thus undermining both the elected government and social cohesion.
Beyond these important conflicts, we must look to the wider battle for the soul of our nation. Whilst those preoccupied with the facile ephemera of social media deny the existence of the culture war they started, we see our national identity, history, and culture being distorted and derided.
Whether it is the literal dismantling of our heritage or the figurative dismantling of our history, literary canon, and much else, this assault strikes at the heart of all we are.
In response, too many small-c conservatives fear confrontation, retreating to safe advocacy of lower taxes and watered-down social liberalism.
But a sugar-free conservatism is not what the public wants, and is certainly not sufficient to address the scale of the problems we face. The status quo of the past two decades has left the public desperate for a government confident enough to respond to the people’s priorities in standing up for Britain. The last thing they want is to be forced to choose between two parties competing for who can be the most liberal.
Neither can we cling to familiar solutions. Too often, debate about our future is overshadowed by the politics of the past; Blair and Margaret Thatcher still provide the framework for how many commentators and politicians perceive politics. Yet challenges we now face are very different from those of the 1970s or even the 1990s.
Unless fundamental change of the kind promised by the Brexit vote and the 2019 election are delivered, people may conclude that representative politics has little meaning. If governing for the common good is displaced by a bland technocracy which neither inspires nor delivers, people may conclude that Parliament has little to offer them. Without nurturing hope or facilitating real change, we risk merely managing decline.
Happily, there are voices, inside of Westminster and beyond, who recognise the need for a different approach. Some will gather at the upcoming National Conservatism Conference in London, where I hope we can articulate a vision of Conservatism that is rooted in the elevation of the people.
This thinking can help the Prime Minister to further strengthen his ambition to fulfil the mandate of 2019, so turning the dream of Britain that so excited our voters then into their reality now. Our borders, culture, families, communities, and institutions must be strengthened to be fit for purpose.
The shadow of Blairism hangs heavy after 16 years. We must find the light of a common-sense Conservatism which nurtures the common good and nourishes the national interest.
The Government, under Sunak’s leadership, is finally starting to deliver again for Britain. With the support of conservative politicians and thinkers, ideas and policies, we can escape from the New Labour legacy to build a new Britain.