Kevin Hollinrake is Chairman of the Conservative Party.
Kemi’s Conservatives are not the Conservatives who lost the last election. We’ve listened. We’ve learned. We’ve changed. We’re coming back to win.
These are the facts that have driven the panicked Reform press conferences, backroom briefings and infighting we have seen over the past few weeks. Our opponents have realised that we are the only party with a tough-love, properly costed, comprehensive plan to fix the biggest issues facing this country. They can plainly see that Kemi has done the hard work to change the party internally.
That change can be seen most visibly in how we select our candidates.
Kemi has written before about how we will not allow ourselves to fall into the trap Labour has of selecting candidates with no real-world or business experience, so I will not revisit that here. Besides, John Healey has already said that Andy Burnham’s Government will be ‘continuity’ Starmerism which tells you everything you need to know. Instead, I want to tell you what you can expect from the new generation of Conservative candidates.
I have been incredibly impressed by the quality and calibre of the over 2,000 people who have applied to join our candidates list. What you will see as selections begin in the weeks and months ahead is serious people joining our ranks from the worlds of business, finance, the military, medicine and education – in fact, from every walk of life.
People who have real-world experience, yes, but they’re all fully signed up to leaving the ECHR, taking a more pragmatic approach to action on climate change and to the other tough but necessary actions the next Conservative government must take. Successful candidates must also be able to demonstrate that they can campaign. In this era of multi-party politics and tactical voting, there is no such thing as a safe seat. To win, you must be willing to put in the hard yards.
We have already seen what happens when a top-class candidate with real-world experience combines with a hard-fought campaign, with Douglas Lumsden’s spectacular election win in Aberdeen South.
We have also been clear about the standards we expect from our candidates. I know some people have chosen to characterise that as an assimilation test. I would put it differently.
There are a small number of positions, arrived at after months of proper discussion, that define how the next Conservative government will deliver for this country. Leaving the ECHR is one of them. If you want to carry our banner into a General Election, you need to be signed up to them. That is not controversial. These are the central tenets of our policy prospectus; they were settled through proper internal debate.
Signing up to these policies does not mean the end of discussion and debate in the Conservative Party. There is and always will be a lively discussion within our party about how we grow the economy, tackle illegal immigration and reverse the disintegration that is happening in our towns and cities. Long may it continue.
A united party does not mean there is no room for disagreement. Our Shadow Cabinet is united and it is united precisely because we have a strong, decisive leader who encourages debate, listens and decides. We sit around the table, we debate, we disagree and we come to a position. Once we have come to it, we all go out and defend it.
Kemi is a good listener. She is extremely interested in the views of her colleagues. Those who have made a strong argument in that room have often seen it reflected in the position we took. Anyone who thinks there is no room for discussion and debate in the Conservative Party has never sat through a Shadow Cabinet meeting!
The changes Kemi has made to our party, however, are not just about people and policy.
Unlike other parties, we are not reliant on a handful of overseas donors. We have significant breadth and depth of support from successful entrepreneurs and business people who share our vision for a stronger economy and a stronger country.
We are also extremely grateful to those who have chosen to support the Conservative Foundation and to the Foundation itself for helping us secure our new home at Castle Lane in Westminster. It was a significant £14 million cash, mortgage-free investment. It is a huge upgrade for our staff, MPs, councillors, members and supporters. For us, the only way is up. The move also saves us £1 million a year in rent, money we can now spend on getting even more Conservatives elected across the country.
Quite rightly, our members have been front and centre in our minds in all of these changes. The leadership team are merely custodians of this party. It actually belongs to those who do the hard yards in every corner of the country, in all weathers, every single day of the week.
We are turning our party back into a movement – you will feel that at conference, where member and small-business attendance has risen dramatically. We also have a massive increase in Young Conservatives attendance. We have put real energy into driving the growth of the YCs again and that work culminates at conference with a hustings for a new, directly elected Chairman. As always, theirs will be the best party at conference.
Thirty years in business taught me this: there are no shortcuts to success.
You find it through the hard yards. Hard yards is how we find good candidates, balance the books, build our membership and win elections. And we can all play our part. As my illustrious predecessor as the Member of Parliament for Malton, Edmund Burke, said, “No one ever made a bigger mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little.” Deliver leaflets, knock on doors, ask your friends, family and neighbours to become members, post and comment on social media, write to the papers, write a cheque. To become a movement again, we must all play our part.
The foundations are now in place for the Conservative Party ahead of a future General Election, whenever that comes.
We have changed our party. Now, with your help, under Kemi Badenoch’s leadership, we are going to change our country.
Kevin Hollinrake is Chairman of the Conservative Party.
Kemi’s Conservatives are not the Conservatives who lost the last election. We’ve listened. We’ve learned. We’ve changed. We’re coming back to win.
These are the facts that have driven the panicked Reform press conferences, backroom briefings and infighting we have seen over the past few weeks. Our opponents have realised that we are the only party with a tough-love, properly costed, comprehensive plan to fix the biggest issues facing this country. They can plainly see that Kemi has done the hard work to change the party internally.
That change can be seen most visibly in how we select our candidates.
Kemi has written before about how we will not allow ourselves to fall into the trap Labour has of selecting candidates with no real-world or business experience, so I will not revisit that here. Besides, John Healey has already said that Andy Burnham’s Government will be ‘continuity’ Starmerism which tells you everything you need to know. Instead, I want to tell you what you can expect from the new generation of Conservative candidates.
I have been incredibly impressed by the quality and calibre of the over 2,000 people who have applied to join our candidates list. What you will see as selections begin in the weeks and months ahead is serious people joining our ranks from the worlds of business, finance, the military, medicine and education – in fact, from every walk of life.
People who have real-world experience, yes, but they’re all fully signed up to leaving the ECHR, taking a more pragmatic approach to action on climate change and to the other tough but necessary actions the next Conservative government must take. Successful candidates must also be able to demonstrate that they can campaign. In this era of multi-party politics and tactical voting, there is no such thing as a safe seat. To win, you must be willing to put in the hard yards.
We have already seen what happens when a top-class candidate with real-world experience combines with a hard-fought campaign, with Douglas Lumsden’s spectacular election win in Aberdeen South.
We have also been clear about the standards we expect from our candidates. I know some people have chosen to characterise that as an assimilation test. I would put it differently.
There are a small number of positions, arrived at after months of proper discussion, that define how the next Conservative government will deliver for this country. Leaving the ECHR is one of them. If you want to carry our banner into a General Election, you need to be signed up to them. That is not controversial. These are the central tenets of our policy prospectus; they were settled through proper internal debate.
Signing up to these policies does not mean the end of discussion and debate in the Conservative Party. There is and always will be a lively discussion within our party about how we grow the economy, tackle illegal immigration and reverse the disintegration that is happening in our towns and cities. Long may it continue.
A united party does not mean there is no room for disagreement. Our Shadow Cabinet is united and it is united precisely because we have a strong, decisive leader who encourages debate, listens and decides. We sit around the table, we debate, we disagree and we come to a position. Once we have come to it, we all go out and defend it.
Kemi is a good listener. She is extremely interested in the views of her colleagues. Those who have made a strong argument in that room have often seen it reflected in the position we took. Anyone who thinks there is no room for discussion and debate in the Conservative Party has never sat through a Shadow Cabinet meeting!
The changes Kemi has made to our party, however, are not just about people and policy.
Unlike other parties, we are not reliant on a handful of overseas donors. We have significant breadth and depth of support from successful entrepreneurs and business people who share our vision for a stronger economy and a stronger country.
We are also extremely grateful to those who have chosen to support the Conservative Foundation and to the Foundation itself for helping us secure our new home at Castle Lane in Westminster. It was a significant £14 million cash, mortgage-free investment. It is a huge upgrade for our staff, MPs, councillors, members and supporters. For us, the only way is up. The move also saves us £1 million a year in rent, money we can now spend on getting even more Conservatives elected across the country.
Quite rightly, our members have been front and centre in our minds in all of these changes. The leadership team are merely custodians of this party. It actually belongs to those who do the hard yards in every corner of the country, in all weathers, every single day of the week.
We are turning our party back into a movement – you will feel that at conference, where member and small-business attendance has risen dramatically. We also have a massive increase in Young Conservatives attendance. We have put real energy into driving the growth of the YCs again and that work culminates at conference with a hustings for a new, directly elected Chairman. As always, theirs will be the best party at conference.
Thirty years in business taught me this: there are no shortcuts to success.
You find it through the hard yards. Hard yards is how we find good candidates, balance the books, build our membership and win elections. And we can all play our part. As my illustrious predecessor as the Member of Parliament for Malton, Edmund Burke, said, “No one ever made a bigger mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little.” Deliver leaflets, knock on doors, ask your friends, family and neighbours to become members, post and comment on social media, write to the papers, write a cheque. To become a movement again, we must all play our part.
The foundations are now in place for the Conservative Party ahead of a future General Election, whenever that comes.
We have changed our party. Now, with your help, under Kemi Badenoch’s leadership, we are going to change our country.