Damian Green is a former First Secretary State, Minister and Member of Parliament for Ashford (1997-2024)
The rumours abound that voting in the leadership election is low.
The Sun’s political editor has written it. And I’ve heard it myself when discussing the race with friends and former constituents. This is a bad thing for our party and for the efforts of whoever wins in rebuilding and unifying this creaking institution.
As an MP I always told people that they should vote even if they didn’t want to vote Conservative. It applies just as strongly to party elections. Whatever my own views are on the relative merits of the two remaining candidates, I believe party members should vote. We Conservatives always cast doubt on those trade unions ballots that have low turnouts. Let’s not repeat that mistake.
We need the person who wins this race to have a mandate to do what they need with the party and try and lead us back to Government. I know that the MP stages finished with the final three candidates basically within the margin of error. But this is often the nature of a three-way race with very different offerings and different relationships within Parliament.
The membership stage now whittled down to two options is different. You have the power to choose, and you should use it. Of course, I do understand why some feel they have been ostracised by the process. I was in Tom Tugendhat’s campaign team and I firmly believe he has what it takes to lead us. But just as I found in July, the votes don’t always go your way, and you need to pick yourself up and choose a new path.
I also understand why many on the so-called moderate wing of the party like me, the One Nation wing, feel like they don’t have a dog in this fight. I have spent my political career pushing for our party to operate from the centre-ground, or the common ground as Keith Joseph correctly called it. As one of the very few Tory MPs elected in Blair’s 1997 landslide, and who was in the middle of things as we cycled through leaders who tried their utmost to find that common ground and failed, I feel it is my job to encourage moderation in our policy development and our language.
However, that is no reason to sit on your hands this time around.
The threat to the Conservative Party is very real. We have just suffered the worst defeat in our history. The last 14 years have taken a punishing toll on our councillor numbers. Our core vote is getting our older and our membership mirrors that.
Perhaps most existentially, Reform has succeeded where UKIP and the Brexit Party never really could and made proper inroads into Westminster politics. The early comfort blanket grabbed by many Tory members I spoke to after July was that the likes of Farage and Tice would grow bored of the requirements of Parliamentary procedure and the Brexit Party would wither. But there are no signs of his happening and, in the meantime, there is now another party on the right of British politics. It may be peddling easy and false answers to difficult questions, but it is a threat to us.
A low turnout at this leadership election would not only give the winner a poor mandate for change, but it could also potentially signal to the outside world that it’s time to look elsewhere. We would be opening the door for our opponents to claim our time is up.
It isn’t. I love the Conservative Party and I won’t let it go quietly into the night.
So I make this appeal: to the disaffected, the moderates, the tired and despairing – don’t sit this one out. If you look closely at each candidate, you will find something there you can support, something that can lead us back from this historic low. But more importantly, by voting you will be helping to boost those numbers, giving our winner a chance to grab the bull by the horns, and telling the country the Conservative Party is ready to lead once again.
Editors Note: The Party member ballot closes at 5pm today, Thursday 31st October 2024
Damian Green is a former First Secretary State, Minister and Member of Parliament for Ashford (1997-2024)
The rumours abound that voting in the leadership election is low.
The Sun’s political editor has written it. And I’ve heard it myself when discussing the race with friends and former constituents. This is a bad thing for our party and for the efforts of whoever wins in rebuilding and unifying this creaking institution.
As an MP I always told people that they should vote even if they didn’t want to vote Conservative. It applies just as strongly to party elections. Whatever my own views are on the relative merits of the two remaining candidates, I believe party members should vote. We Conservatives always cast doubt on those trade unions ballots that have low turnouts. Let’s not repeat that mistake.
We need the person who wins this race to have a mandate to do what they need with the party and try and lead us back to Government. I know that the MP stages finished with the final three candidates basically within the margin of error. But this is often the nature of a three-way race with very different offerings and different relationships within Parliament.
The membership stage now whittled down to two options is different. You have the power to choose, and you should use it. Of course, I do understand why some feel they have been ostracised by the process. I was in Tom Tugendhat’s campaign team and I firmly believe he has what it takes to lead us. But just as I found in July, the votes don’t always go your way, and you need to pick yourself up and choose a new path.
I also understand why many on the so-called moderate wing of the party like me, the One Nation wing, feel like they don’t have a dog in this fight. I have spent my political career pushing for our party to operate from the centre-ground, or the common ground as Keith Joseph correctly called it. As one of the very few Tory MPs elected in Blair’s 1997 landslide, and who was in the middle of things as we cycled through leaders who tried their utmost to find that common ground and failed, I feel it is my job to encourage moderation in our policy development and our language.
However, that is no reason to sit on your hands this time around.
The threat to the Conservative Party is very real. We have just suffered the worst defeat in our history. The last 14 years have taken a punishing toll on our councillor numbers. Our core vote is getting our older and our membership mirrors that.
Perhaps most existentially, Reform has succeeded where UKIP and the Brexit Party never really could and made proper inroads into Westminster politics. The early comfort blanket grabbed by many Tory members I spoke to after July was that the likes of Farage and Tice would grow bored of the requirements of Parliamentary procedure and the Brexit Party would wither. But there are no signs of his happening and, in the meantime, there is now another party on the right of British politics. It may be peddling easy and false answers to difficult questions, but it is a threat to us.
A low turnout at this leadership election would not only give the winner a poor mandate for change, but it could also potentially signal to the outside world that it’s time to look elsewhere. We would be opening the door for our opponents to claim our time is up.
It isn’t. I love the Conservative Party and I won’t let it go quietly into the night.
So I make this appeal: to the disaffected, the moderates, the tired and despairing – don’t sit this one out. If you look closely at each candidate, you will find something there you can support, something that can lead us back from this historic low. But more importantly, by voting you will be helping to boost those numbers, giving our winner a chance to grab the bull by the horns, and telling the country the Conservative Party is ready to lead once again.
Editors Note: The Party member ballot closes at 5pm today, Thursday 31st October 2024