Jack Barwell: Why we lost and what we need to do differently. Part One – The here and now

Jack Barwell was a Conservative campaign manager in East Devon at the 2024 election.

We are now a few months on since electing Kemi Badenoch leader.

The Conservative Party has managed to differentiate themselves from Labour due to the unpopular decisions this government have made without a mandate, from winter fuel payment cuts to inheritance tax changes on family farms.

But the biggest gainers in the polls so far have been Reform, capitalising on the lack of faith in the system and actors of all stripes.

I know the difficulties the previous election brought first hand as 21-year-old who was campaign manager for a successful first-time conservative candidate who won by only 121 votes. The problems we found on the doorstep, and I dealt with within our campaign team, exposed why the Conservatives are in such a difficult electoral position and how we can fight our way out of it.

The choice is simple, learn these lessons and change or fail to create an electable brand and fall to third place.

We primarily lost the General Election for three reasons.

Firstly, we didn’t deliver enough.

Across 14 years we brought the deficit down, decreased inflation, achieved record increases in education levels, record job creation and cut carbon emissions more than any previous administration, so it’s not that we didn’t deliver at all. We didn’t deliver enough, and as a result many now feel we didn’t deliver at all.

When it comes to voters’ feelings, unlike the famous Ben Shapiro phrase, they really can matter more than the facts sometimes.

If voters can’t feel safer, better off, more secure with regards to public services, then it doesn’t really matter how much money is going into an institution, the voters reject that government for failing to deliver.

The honest truth is that when asked by voters whether they felt better off than 14 years ago, many voters could not answer yes.

That was because we were unable to turn the tide – on an expanding state that was failing to deliver strong public services, on increasing migration levels both legal and illegal that need to come down – though there absolutely is a case for skilled legal migration – and on spiralling deficits and inflation through poor economic management with lockdowns and COVID payments going on for too long and Liz Truss’ disastrous mini budget.

Conservatives that cannot analyse the last 14 years and reach these conclusions are out of touch with what the average voter thinks, or unwilling to analyse the dangers of a growing state and government overspend that whilst it originated in the Blair years, continued under conservative administrations – or they’re guilty of both.

Secondly, we weren’t conservative enough.

Now this does not mean we should pander to the right on every issue, but we mustn’t take the base for granted when the base is saying what the ordinary voter up and down the country, who does the manual labour jobs, voted for Brexit and wants to see regeneration, is saying.

For years our base has argued for lower taxes, law and order on our streets, lower immigration and levelling up in more rural and ex-industrial areas. Yet in the last few years we’ve failed to deliver big levelling up projects, lost control of our reputation for economic credibility, seen the highest levels of tax for 75 years, failed to take a grip and insist on fair and robust policing (particularly during protests) and  seen legal migration net levels into the 700 thousands and failed to stop the boats.

Finally, and most importantly, we have not been united as a team.

Infighting at Westminster, political backstabbing and constant change of leadership has left the conservative party without an identity and has lost us any credibility that voters can be sure a leader will see us through the parliamentary term if elected.

This is an unsustainable model and backbenchers refusing to support legislation that the party put forward in their manifesto has left us the political equivalent of a football team whose best players want to transfer and refuse to train. Worse still MPs are being asked to vote for legislation proposed by new leadership there was never in the manifesto – such as the fracking bill under Liz Truss.

All these issues affected the campaign I ran in Exmouth.

The failure to deliver meant membership numbers decreased and activists refused to campaign, making it harder to speak to voters we needed to win round in a difficult election.

The failure to be conservative meant voters defected to reform or stayed at home that normally voted Conservative, and the failure to unite and speak with one voice made it difficult to run a campaign with those who were physically older but less experienced at campaigning, who did not want to listen to younger, but battle hardened voices on our centralised campaign strategy.

We must put members at the heart of our operation making sure that associations can pick from a full slate of three CCHQ approved candidates.

We must also make it more appealing to be a conservative member, encouraging our associations to run more events and have more regular campaigning opportunities, getting more people out on the doors for the first time in our constituencies, whether that be ahead of general elections or local ones.

Right now, fighting hard in local elections could be so important in determining the momentum in individual constituencies and in many of the seats, particularly in the southwest where I worked in the general election, Liberal Democrat success was most readily seen where Liberal Democrats had gained councils in local elections in the years previous.

Tomorrow in Part 2 – ‘the lessons from abroad’