Luke Graham was the Conservative Member of Parliament for Ochil and Perthshire South from 2017 to 2019, the candidate in Perth and Kinross-shire in 2024, and a former head of the Downing Street Union Unit.
Although many are still nursing their post-conference colds, it is unmistakable that most members left the Conservative and Unionist Party conference last week with a warm glow.
Gone were the factional “leadership challengers”, absent were the “anonymous” media briefings and in their place came a sense of direction and even excitement about the next general election.
At the start of conference, Kemi held up The Right Way (TRW) – the codified statement of principles intended to guide the next Conservative government. Building on The Right Approach as published by Margaret Thatcher, TRW aims to serve not as a comprehensive treatise, but as the cornerstone of future policy development based on clear principles and core beliefs.
None of these principles will seem unfamiliar to any Conservative: a value-creating economy, sound public money, championing business, a stronger but smaller state, controlled borders and meaningful citizenship. And yet, in our current political landscape TRW stands out as being a clearer and more coherent pitch for government than any other party.
The importance of TRW is not simply that it tells voters what Conservatives believe, but that it establishes the principles against which future policy decisions can be judged. After years in which short-term political calculations too often displaced long-term strategy, that discipline matters.
And this kind of publication could not be timelier – as Andy Burnham sets out his government in vibes, avoiding the tough decisions, principled and clear Conservative Party makes for a strong opposition and an even stronger alternative.
Meanwhile, the other parties appear to be struggling for such clarity. The Liberal Democrats, who are masters of campaigning on everything but standing for nothing, are embarking on a leadership challenge that no doubt will see them continue to take contradictory positions across the country. The SNP are slipping back into bare-faced lies – publicly stating that the Prime Minister’s proposed changes to the Triple Lock will “lead to Scots losing their pensions” – even the most sleekit independence campaigner has got to struggle to keep a straight face when repeating such falsehoods.
And then there is Reform UK, who are still reeling from multiple funding scandals, hoping that bolder policy will help obscure the finding of the Nigel Farage parliamentary enquiry which is due in the coming days. It was no surprise then that over the weekend Reform announced their latest policy – to “shut down the asylum system completely”, deport 90,000 asylum seekers and cancel programmes such as the Homes for Ukraine scheme. Sounds strong, sounds like an obvious solution – “don’t like immigration? Let’s cancel it.”
Despite this policy being against the majority of what Reform voters want, over fifty percent support letting in people fleeing war-torn countries and persecution through controlled and capped routes (More in Common poll, August 2026), it shows Reform’s direction as it desperately scrabbles to regain its vote lead.
It’s this kind of populist policy which demonstrates why having clear principles as stated in TRW is so important. It forces us to confront the consequences of apparently simple solutions; in this example TRW allows us to agree on stronger border control but also consider that those fleeing Ukraine or those who supported British armed forces in Afghanistan should have a legal route to safety come and contribute to the UK. At the same time TRW leads to more coherent policy to protect our borders such as exiting the ECHR, establishing a funded removals force and drafting a Rights and Responsibilities Citizenship Bill.
Principles will not remove the difficult choices of government, but they should ensure that those choices are made consistently, rather than according to the latest opinion poll. In immigration policy developing a Rights and Responsibilities Bill shows extended thinking beyond addressing the direct symptom to tackling the root cause of our societal discontent around recent immigration, which has been the lack of effective integration and the feeling of unequal treatment both in terms of protection and opportunities. Effective immigration policy must do more than reduce arrivals. It must restore control, maintain legitimate routes to protection and rebuild public confidence in the obligations that citizenship entails.
Principles lead to better policy, while safeguarding against any sudden change of direction when the political winds blow stronger and the electoral calculus gets tighter. If we are honest as party, this is where we made mistakes in our last government – we became tactical as opposed to strategic and became almost too pragmatic in our policy making.
So as the winter nights creep in and the temperature drops, Conservatives can keep the warm glow from a conference that offered something more durable than a temporary bounce in morale. We have begun to map out the principles that will guide our choices for government. The harder task is turning those choices into a full manifesto, defending that manifesto when the political weather changes and, ultimately, earning back the confidence of the electorate to allow us to govern.