We need to return to our core beliefs and remember what makes us Conservatives

We lost North Shropshire on Thursday for the simple reason that our supporters didn’t turn out in sufficient numbers to resist the tactical alliance of our opponents. Why? What has gone wrong with the reputation of the Conservative Party that people who normally vote for us are content to let a Lib Dem represent them?

What’s gone wrong is that we find ourselves mired in allegations of sleaze and rule-breaking, while the country finds itself in a swamp of regulations that harm the social and economic fabric of our nation. Our supporters are embarrassed by the former, fatigued by the latter, and angered by both.

Reaching out to new or lost voters paradoxically involves returning to one’s core. We need to remember what makes us Conservatives, then make an honest offer to the public: this is what we believe and if you support us, this is what you’ll get.

So what do Conservatives believe? We believe in sound money and low taxes; in strong families and strong national defence; in our national institutions and traditions; and we believe in trusting the people. Our most fundamental characteristic is that we have faith in the intelligence and the capabilities of the British public.

And we have hope. Boris Johnson won both the 2016 referendum and 2019 general election because he communicated his own optimism about the UK’s future. People voted Leave and voted Tory for a better Britain, free of bureaucracy and oppressive political correctness – a confident, can-do country where people are trusted with responsibility and freedom.

This remains the reason to vote Conservative. Instead of hope, Labour and the Lib Dems offer only fear and to every challenge have only one answer: more state power, more tax, more spending and more scaremongering. This has been the drumbeat throughout the Covid crisis, echoed by the scientific establishment, which at times seems to lose all objectivity in the advice it gives the Government and the public. It is little wonder our core supporters are so exasperated by the direction of travel.

We need a new way forward that needs to be distinctively Conservative, yet capable of engaging and widening our electoral coalition. It will recognise the value of personal freedom, yet also know that the foundations of freedom are responsibility, restraint and

generosity towards others. To achieve a properly free society we need to strengthen families, communities and the institutions of civil society.

As we learn to live with Covid-19, we need to recover this distinctively Conservative blend of freedom and belonging. We need it for our young people, who have borne the brunt of measures imposed to tackle a disease to which they are almost immune.

“Integrity” means being truthful towards other people, but also being true to yourself. As a party we need both. The good news is Mr Johnson’s philosophy – his belief in personal freedom and in our future outside the EU, his commitment to “levelling up”, his support for a made-in-Britain, high-wage, export-oriented economy, his enthusiasm for sport and culture and the environment – echoes the aspirations of the country as a whole. Our task now is to mix these principles into a coherent package that we can offer, with integrity, to voters.