‘I sensed things were going to change, that they had to’

Among the new Tory faces fighting for Yorkshire in the House of Commons is one which looks a little more familiar. Geraldine Scott quizzes Colne Valley’s MP on what it is like returning to politics after two years away.

WHILE A lot has changed in Westminster in the last two years, many things have remained the same – and for Jason McCartney his return has allowed him to reassess which causes he wants to be involved in.

Mr McCartney returned to Parliament in December, having previously been the MP for Colne Valley between 2010 and 2017.

But although once defeated by Labour’s Thelma Walker, in what he calls a push from the “hard left”, Mr McCartney said: “People have now rejected that.

“I got the most votes ever in my constituency and I’m very proud if that, and the constituency is over 100 years old.”

He added: “In 2017 I lost with my most ever number of votes, because all the other parties collapsed.

“But I stayed involved,” he said when asked why his local association would put their trust in him again after he had lost the seat.

“I must admit when I lost in 2017 I never actually thought that I would get the opportunity so soon to be able to come back again.

“I enjoy campaigning. Because we’re friends, it’s what we enjoy doing, we enjoy getting stuck into community projects, helping people, real community focus, so all my staff are local people.”

In his time away, Mr McCartney, 52, packed in various roles – the head of public affairs at the University of Huddersfield, a director at the Mid Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce, and a trustee of a mental health charity, the Leanne Baker Trust, just some of them.

However, in just two short years of being away, much had changed in Westminster.

“So I kept myself very, very busy, and then I was selected as the parliamentary candidate again for Colne Valley in May last year, and if you remember it was about the time of the European elections.

“It didn’t go fantastically well for the established parties, we had the surge of the Brexit Party. We did very badly. But I sensed that things were going to change, they had to change.

“When I first came back I met up with some colleagues I haven’t seen for a couple of years. And I said, ‘What have you been up to for two years? I left when we were voting on Brexit and I’m back and we’re still voting on Brexit’. But we got that Brexit Bill through in the last week in December really quickly, unamended, because we’re all united.”

During Theresa May’s premiership, with a reduced majority, Mr McCartney said backbenchers held a lot of power, but now they were forming groups to lobby for their particular interests.

“In the last two or three years with one individual vote, you could go and meet the Prime Minister, now you have to do it as a caucus, as a group, and my WhatsApp groups are full of groupings to make points.

“So the social justice caucus which I’m involved in and obviously the Blue Collar West Yorkshire Conservatives, and you go in and see the Chancellor and make the case.”

He added: “Having been away for two years it’s nice coming here with a blank piece of paper.”

One issue father-of-two Mr McCartney has taken up immediately is fuel duty, and he was one of 13 MPs to sign a letter to new Chancellor Rishi Sunak urging him not to end a freeze in the Budget next week.

“We’ve made a good case on that,” he said. “Where I live, in our parts of the world, for a lot of people using a car isn’t a luxury. Fuel duty has been frozen I think for the whole of the time of the Conservative and the coalition governments, but I know there are other campaigns that I’ve also been putting forward to the Chancellor as well.

“Obviously I want more money in bus services and train services in Huddersfield. I want investment in the Huddersfield to Sheffield line, and obviously the TransPennine upgrade to go ahead and Northern Powerhouse Rail.

“But I’ve also been making the case for more money in social care, and more money for sixth form education because they’ve had a real freeze in income for sixth form colleges whereas some school equivalent school funding has actually gone up.”

But he recognised Mr Sunak was in a difficult position, adding: “I just said to the Chancellor, here I am asking for more money to be spent on this, this, and this. And then on the other hand, I’m then asking you not to increase taxes.

“I try to pick and choose my fight.”

He said he saw himself and Conservative MPs as “responsible custodians of the national economy” unlike “all those airy fairy, nonsensical, mythical spending pledges” from Labour.

“Free this, free that, almost every day they were coming up with something,” he said. “Certainly the local Labour MPs, they just don’t get it.”

Regardless he found he was able to work with some Yorkshire Labour MPs, including Halifax MP Holly Lynch, with whom he chaired the free trade group.

“We are good friends, and I used to like telling people that members of different parties can work together, where they’ve got a common goal.”

But his words for the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn are less warm.

“Jeremy Corbyn is a protester, a placard waver,” he said. “He’s been protesting about things all his life, he’s never made a tough decision in his life, completely the wrong man to lead our country, particularly in these challenging times. And thankfully tens of thousands of my constituents thought that and put their faith in me.”

And he did not see the opposition getting any stronger. He felt Lisa Nandy would be best to lead the Labour Party following Mr Corbyn, and added: “I think they’re about to make a momentous mistake by going for Keir (Starmer).”