Dr Luke Evans is MP for Hinckley and Bosworth.
I am one of the lucky ones. One of the 121 Conservative MPs recently elected. Yet, I must confess, my victory feels rather Pyrrhic. For those unfamiliar with the term, it originates from Pyrrhus of Epirus, whose costly victory against the Romans led, ultimately, to his defeat. Could this be the fate of our 121 Conservative MPs and the Party as a whole? Only time will tell.
The first week back in Parliament was mixed. Witnessing colleagues winding up their offices, letting go of their staff, and saying goodbye is a sobering experience. Winner’s guilt, I guess.
To top it off, the sheer scale of Labour’s numbers became evident when we sat down to elect the Speaker of the House. Labour members filled the entire Government benches, overflowing onto the balcony benches and even the non-speaking area opposite the Speaker.
As I struggled to pick out any of the faces I had become used to debating over the last five years, I told myself it was simply because their seats had changed on the swap over from Opposition to Government. But after the General Election there are more new Members of Parliament than those who were re-elected and the magnitude of the change, particularly for those of us getting used to sitting on the Opposition benches, is daunting.
As we face this new reality, many are trying to understand what went wrong. Should the Conservatives shift to the right to address the 4 million people who voted for Reform? Or consider the 3.5 million votes for the Liberal Democrats and the collapse of the SNP? I am no psephologist and these questions will be debated for years to come. But what is clear is that Keir Starmer’s rise to power with 9.7 million votes (fewer than Jeremy Corbyn’s 10.3 million in 2019) reflects a broader discontent.
This tallies with my experience on the doorstep. I repeatedly encountered voters who felt trapped. Undecided and looking for the ‘least bad option’. It was saddening. I wanted people to vote positively; for something they believed in and are passionate about.
So often I would hear ‘We like what you have done Luke…’ followed by either ‘but we can’t vote for you because of the Party above you’ or ‘So we are voting for you despite the Party you are a part of.’ I had enough of the latter, not the former. Anecdotally, this sentiment resonates with other Conservative MPs in conversations in the tearoom.
In closed circles in our first week back, discussions about the future of the Conservative Party are rife. Many are eager to diagnose the problem and administer a quick fix. I would caution against this. As a doctor, we must stabilise the patient before proceeding with further treatment. We need to get the basics right: learning how to be an effective Opposition, managing Party finances with the loss of short money, and recovering from a gruelling election. “Time is the wisest counsellor of all,” as the saying goes.
Uncomfortable as it is, Labour is now setting the agenda. They are now the Government grappling with issues we struggled with: immigration, prisons, waiting lists, growth, and debt. I genuinely hope they succeed, for the country’s sake. As the Opposition, we will challenge them, and hold them accountable for every promise, every hypocrisy, and every U-Turn. And after 14 years of waiting, there will be plenty of empty promises.
The Conservative Parliamentary Party must be there to expose Labour, and we will. But I want more for our Party.
I want more than just Opposition. My biggest frustration with the election was the lack of positive voting. Voting for something people believed in. Voting for a better way. I do not have the answers to what this looks like. There are far cleverer and more erudite thinkers in the Conservative wings, and I can attest to that.
But I do know this; we must return to fundamentals. Back to basics.
And I don’t mean in policy terms or ideology within the Party. I mean simple virtues. A raging debate goes on around “Are you a One Nation Conservative? A Pop-Con? An ERG’er? A New Conservative?” and every faction rushes to give their answer. I thought we were one Conservative Party. Many will say in public and in private, “We must have unity.” Talk is cheap, it’s the actions that follow that truly count. After all, we have heard these calls for three years now, and yet here we are. Why?
Respect. Or, rather, the lack of.
That is my belief. Through both our actions internally and to the public, we lost respect for one another. Respect was the cornerstone of what it was to be Conservative, it allowed us to manage a broad church of ideas and through that we earned the electorate’s trust.
But without respect, we cannot build trust. Without trust, we cannot build consensus. Without consensus, we cannot create a vision for the future.
If Conservative MPs do not respect one another, if we continue to fight publicly and leak against each other, we will remain in Opposition.
The Pyrrhic nature of our victories will indeed sow the prophesy that is tantamount to defeat for the Party. This must not happen. The Conservative Party’s resurgence must be built on earned respect. Respect cannot be taken; it must be earned and willingly given.
From MP to MP, activist to activist, Party to membership, and Conservatives to the public, we must earn admiration through our qualities, abilities, and actions. After all, actions speak louder than words, and no one is listening to our words.
Dr Luke Evans is MP for Hinckley and Bosworth.
I am one of the lucky ones. One of the 121 Conservative MPs recently elected. Yet, I must confess, my victory feels rather Pyrrhic. For those unfamiliar with the term, it originates from Pyrrhus of Epirus, whose costly victory against the Romans led, ultimately, to his defeat. Could this be the fate of our 121 Conservative MPs and the Party as a whole? Only time will tell.
The first week back in Parliament was mixed. Witnessing colleagues winding up their offices, letting go of their staff, and saying goodbye is a sobering experience. Winner’s guilt, I guess.
To top it off, the sheer scale of Labour’s numbers became evident when we sat down to elect the Speaker of the House. Labour members filled the entire Government benches, overflowing onto the balcony benches and even the non-speaking area opposite the Speaker.
As I struggled to pick out any of the faces I had become used to debating over the last five years, I told myself it was simply because their seats had changed on the swap over from Opposition to Government. But after the General Election there are more new Members of Parliament than those who were re-elected and the magnitude of the change, particularly for those of us getting used to sitting on the Opposition benches, is daunting.
As we face this new reality, many are trying to understand what went wrong. Should the Conservatives shift to the right to address the 4 million people who voted for Reform? Or consider the 3.5 million votes for the Liberal Democrats and the collapse of the SNP? I am no psephologist and these questions will be debated for years to come. But what is clear is that Keir Starmer’s rise to power with 9.7 million votes (fewer than Jeremy Corbyn’s 10.3 million in 2019) reflects a broader discontent.
This tallies with my experience on the doorstep. I repeatedly encountered voters who felt trapped. Undecided and looking for the ‘least bad option’. It was saddening. I wanted people to vote positively; for something they believed in and are passionate about.
So often I would hear ‘We like what you have done Luke…’ followed by either ‘but we can’t vote for you because of the Party above you’ or ‘So we are voting for you despite the Party you are a part of.’ I had enough of the latter, not the former. Anecdotally, this sentiment resonates with other Conservative MPs in conversations in the tearoom.
In closed circles in our first week back, discussions about the future of the Conservative Party are rife. Many are eager to diagnose the problem and administer a quick fix. I would caution against this. As a doctor, we must stabilise the patient before proceeding with further treatment. We need to get the basics right: learning how to be an effective Opposition, managing Party finances with the loss of short money, and recovering from a gruelling election. “Time is the wisest counsellor of all,” as the saying goes.
Uncomfortable as it is, Labour is now setting the agenda. They are now the Government grappling with issues we struggled with: immigration, prisons, waiting lists, growth, and debt. I genuinely hope they succeed, for the country’s sake. As the Opposition, we will challenge them, and hold them accountable for every promise, every hypocrisy, and every U-Turn. And after 14 years of waiting, there will be plenty of empty promises.
The Conservative Parliamentary Party must be there to expose Labour, and we will. But I want more for our Party.
I want more than just Opposition. My biggest frustration with the election was the lack of positive voting. Voting for something people believed in. Voting for a better way. I do not have the answers to what this looks like. There are far cleverer and more erudite thinkers in the Conservative wings, and I can attest to that.
But I do know this; we must return to fundamentals. Back to basics.
And I don’t mean in policy terms or ideology within the Party. I mean simple virtues. A raging debate goes on around “Are you a One Nation Conservative? A Pop-Con? An ERG’er? A New Conservative?” and every faction rushes to give their answer. I thought we were one Conservative Party. Many will say in public and in private, “We must have unity.” Talk is cheap, it’s the actions that follow that truly count. After all, we have heard these calls for three years now, and yet here we are. Why?
Respect. Or, rather, the lack of.
That is my belief. Through both our actions internally and to the public, we lost respect for one another. Respect was the cornerstone of what it was to be Conservative, it allowed us to manage a broad church of ideas and through that we earned the electorate’s trust.
But without respect, we cannot build trust. Without trust, we cannot build consensus. Without consensus, we cannot create a vision for the future.
If Conservative MPs do not respect one another, if we continue to fight publicly and leak against each other, we will remain in Opposition.
The Pyrrhic nature of our victories will indeed sow the prophesy that is tantamount to defeat for the Party. This must not happen. The Conservative Party’s resurgence must be built on earned respect. Respect cannot be taken; it must be earned and willingly given.
From MP to MP, activist to activist, Party to membership, and Conservatives to the public, we must earn admiration through our qualities, abilities, and actions. After all, actions speak louder than words, and no one is listening to our words.