Sean Woodward stood down this week as Leader of Fareham Council.
I have just ended my tenure as Fareham Borough Council Leader of 25 years and a councillor for nearly four decades, winning 15 consecutive elections. Unlike many of my Conservative colleagues, 1,600 over the last 12 months, I ended at a time of my choosing, a choice which many politicians don’t get. I decided four years ago that the Hampshire County election of 2021 and the Fareham Borough election of 2022 would be my last, knowing Fareham would be having an all-out election due to boundary changes so it seemed a natural endpoint.
I am so pleased to have been able to lead Fareham to so many fantastic achievements over the last quarter of a century. We have a thriving airport with many jobs which was threatened with becoming a gravel pit then a housing estate. We are starting work on a 6,000 home new community with full infrastructure at Welborne and we have just completed a £17m arts and entertainment complex, Fareham Live. Add to that two amazing leisure centres, parks and open spaces and Fareham is the envy of many boroughs.
On top of all of the foregoing, we continue to deliver excellent services at almost the lowest council tax in the country. None of this happened by accident but is the result of a huge amount of hard work and dedication from Conservative Councillors and council officers of whom Fareham’s are the absolute best.
So, what happened last week? Well, Fareham was the only council in the south-east to return a Conservative administration. We lost just two seats net and retained a strong majority in the new council. It was heartbreaking to lose esteemed colleagues through no fault of their own. This was achieved despite the complete shambles of a national Conservative Party and government.
I truly believe that we need a General Election as soon as possible. That is not because I want to see the inevitable Labour government which I believe will be an utter disaster for this country. It is because we need to see the Conservative Party rebuilt and that rebuild will be in local government as it always is. Some people controlling the party nationally and regionally are appalling. From elected placemen to employees pursuing their own vindictive agendas against hardworking Conservatives. This has led to an out-of-touch government and a parliamentary party in many ways indistinguishable from the Liberals. I sincerely believe that Margaret Thatcher could not get on the candidates list in the modern-day Conservative Party. She would be viewed as too Thatcherite…
Almost every elector I visited over the last few months had one of two messages for me. Either “we will vote for you locally despite the blue rosette but because of what you have done for the area” or “we will not vote for you because of your messed-up disastrous government to whom we want to send a message.” Many Fareham voters failed to vote or voted against the national Party. We clung on because of our local record. In many areas up and down the country the second sentiment prevailed, and hundreds of colleagues are gone, and councils lost. Good Conservative colleagues, good Conservative councils. Those councillors and councils did not suddenly become bad last Thursday. No. The blame for the rout of the last 12 months can be laid firmly at the doors of 10 Downing Street and CCHQ.
Looking forward, as there is little point looking backwards, our party needs to change. It needs to become unashamedly Conservative. It needs to pursue policies which appeal to our natural supporters and more widely. Margaret Thatcher managed it, Boris Johnson managed it. We need parliamentary candidates for the General Election after this one who, rather than being Liberals, are keen to pursue and sell such policies which can be developed over the next few years.
The NHS needs reform, not shedloads of money creating a bureaucracy of more managers than beds. We need welfare reform such that work actually pays and those who will not work when they are perfectly able to do so are not paid to sit idle as generations of their friends and neighbours have done. We need to control our borders. 30,000 illegals arriving by boat each year is bad. But 750,000 so-called legal migrants per year requiring half a dozen towns the size of Fareham to house them is simply unsustainable. Leaving the EU was supposed to bring back control of our laws and our borders. It hasn’t been properly implemented. We must leave the ECHR immediately. This isn’t the 1950s and times have changed.
In summary therefore the whole culture of the Conservative Party needs to change, proper Conservative policies developed, and Conservatives selected as parliamentary candidates rather than Liberals. We need more MPs with the passion and conviction of our own MP here in Fareham, not the types being imposed on Conservative Associations the length and breadth of Britain. I look forward to the day when I can again say with pride that I am proud to be a Conservative rather than a person who has spent many years implementing true Conservative policies in local government which are no longer de rigueur in the national party.