Tories, 10 tips to survive a fraught conference without a bust-up

MPS, and especially ministers, should remember that Labour is waiting to seize its chance

Having attended about 40 Conservative conferences, I have learned a few things about how to get through them alive. This year’s gathering threatens to be even more pivotal and politically hazardous than the tumultuous conferences of 1963 and 2005, each of which took place in the midst of choosing a new leader. Here is my advice, from personal health to handling Brexit, on how to emerge from Birmingham next week with a party intact.

1. If you are a senior minister, remember you have to get through four whole days of this and run the country the next morning. As Theresa May learnt to her cost last year, you must keep your voice and health. While everyone else has a wild party, you have to go to bed early, limit your engagements, and be obsessive about cleaning – the germs from your hands and the saliva and bits of canapé with which enthusiastic supporters will spray you. Yes, there is an utterly disgusting side to being in charge.

2. If you find yourself talking, as some Tory aides were reported at the weekend as doing, of deliberately having another general election soon, you have probably had too much alcohol, or you might even need medical help. If the party were united on Brexit, it would be a brave idea; as things stand it is a nonsensical one. You can’t have an election to resolve a problem within your own party and expect anything other than a disaster.

3. Similarly, if you are spreading the idea of a leadership election, sit down, think rationally about what this entails and then keep quiet. It is clear that the next two months will be of vast importance in deciding many aspects of the future of this country. If the governing party spent this period on a leadership contest, that would be seen by most people as incredibly irresponsible and self-indulgent. And they would be right.

4. If, on the other hand, you think you ought to be the leader in the future, then don’t mention that at any time, and particularly not in a bar or lift. If others are talking about it, disclaim all knowledge or interest. Ruth Davidson is currently doing a fantastic job of this, and is thus still a strong candidate for the future.

5. If you are a minister, make some exciting announcements about the future, post-brexit Britain. There are digital networks to be built, infrastructure to be completed, trade deals to be done and new environmental policies to be adopted. Sound positive about what the Government can achieve.

6. In particular, if you are the Cabinet, make sure you finalise by next week a new immigration policy. This is essential to the country and will be distinctive for the Conservatives. Adopt the idea of a single policy to be applied to everyone, to welcome talent but control numbers. That can be combined with special arrangements with other countries as part of a trade deal, whether it’s with the EU or Australia. You can have a coherent, new, sensible and popular policy on a subject of massive concern to voters.

7. In addition, don’t neglect another big issue out there in the country: housing. Affording and finding a house dominates people’s lives. Now that the Government has announced a plethora of initiatives on this, from Help to Buy to more council houses, show how they all fit together and that more ideas are on the way.

8. Whoever you are, bore on about the economy and what has been achieved at any opportunity. Don’t let anyone forget what a state we were in when Gordon Brown was dragged out of Downing Street. If you forget to mention there are three million more jobs since then, you are not doing well at your own.

9. When in doubt, attack the enemy and its ideology. Don’t get into a debate about the policies Labour push this week in Liverpool. It’s the character of Labour under Corbyn that is its weakness – this is a party with a poisonous, bullying atmosphere; where a Jewish MP needs police protection to go to meetings; in which moderate MPS are being driven out; whose leader is more open, when people are murdered on our streets, to ridiculous Russian excuses than the evidence of our own security services. There has never been, in the whole of British history, an opposition less fitted for office – let everyone know it.

10. Finally, and this time most important of all, before opening your mouth on Brexit remind yourself of several points – that if the people at this conference and their MPS don’t come together on this there will be no Tory government, no improving economy, no bright future, and probably no Brexit. Bear in mind that, following Labour’s slippery backsliding in Liverpool and readiness to vote against any specific form of leaving the EU, the Conservatives are now the only party faithfully attempting to fulfil the wishes of the people, expressed in a national referendum. So nobody should say anything that makes it harder for the party to vote together at a later stage.

Then realise that Labour’s fudging and the EU’S apparent rejection of Theresa May’s plans in Salzburg last week allow Conservatives to unite around two fundamental points she has already expressed – no betrayal of the referendum outcome and no breaking up of the United Kingdom.

Whether you are a Cabinet minister, Jacob Rees-mogg, or a vocal grassroots representative, give some latitude and credit for the views of others. It is not crazy to suggest a Canada-style free trade agreement with the EU, just very difficult to square with the commitments on the Irish border already made. It was not wrong of the Prime Minister of this country to seek a solution consistent with those commitments and therefore to propose the Chequers plan, just hard to sell at home and abroad. Since this cannot be resolved before leaving Birmingham and the world is watching you there, it would be a good idea to listen patiently to each other and avoid being boxed in to a fixed outcome.

Follow these 10 tips, dear fellow Tories, and you will get through Birmingham with only an odd scandal and one or two dismal speeches, which is quite normal. If still in doubt of the importance of this, tune in for an hour to what is happening in Liverpool. You will soon see how much is at stake.