Chris Patten: My six-point plan to pull the Tories out of the abyss

BItaly’s new Labour government has got off to a flying start. After 14 years of an increasingly incompetent and belligerent Conservative government, the Labour Party under Keir Starmer now appears to have a remarkably firm grip on efforts to tackle the mountain of problems facing the country today.

Starmer himself has travelled across the UK, from Westminster to Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, trying to restore at least a modicum of trust between central government and the devolved administrations in the UK.

He was able to bring elected mayors from across England – Labour and Conservative – behind his helm and ask them to support the efforts of the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, to revive economic growth.

His government has pledged to tackle swiftly the appalling overcrowding in our prisons that the Conservatives have caused. Health Secretary Wes Streeting is trying to improve industrial relations in the health service so that waiting lists can be reduced even for serious treatment.

Abroad, the new foreign and defence ministers are busy repairing relations with our partners in Europe. Starmer himself was in Washington for a NATO summit, promising more support for Ukraine and preparing a meeting with the other European democracies in the UK on security and foreign policy.

And what about the Conservative Party? The recent election earthquake has probably dealt it the worst defeat in its history, losing votes across the board to Labour, the Liberal Democrats and Nigel Farage’s Reform Party. There has been a spectacular sacking of ministers, both good and bad. Long-serving MPs have seen majorities that had seemed unassailable reduced to a handful of votes or even wiped out entirely.

Not surprisingly, a shrill debate has already erupted over how the Conservative Party, one of the world’s two oldest democratic parties, should reposition itself, with potential leaders of this rump party hurling insults at each other and attacking ousted Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who is said to have been the main cause of the election disaster.

The Conservative Party’s tendency to lose its way in fraternal disputes is nothing new. This vicious business began in the 1990s, when it focused on Europe and the moderate conservatism of John Major.

Each dispute has been more bitter than the last, and today’s arguments are fuelled not only by rival ambitions – those of far-right politicians such as Suella Braverman and Priti Patel, for example – but also by absurd attempts to cover up Liz Truss’s disastrous tenure and the years of lies and incompetence that were the main legacy of the moral vacuum that was Boris Johnson’s years at 10 Downing Street.

So what should we do, as Lenin once asked?

First, the Conservative Party does not need to rush into anything other than pulling itself together and learning to operate as a team. The best option would be for Sunak to agree to stay on as leader for a short period or, alternatively, make way for an interim leader who could command support across the party.

Secondly, the Conservative Party should recognise that its main task at the moment is to act as a loyal opposition. It should be prepared to support the government when it is clearly trying to do the right thing on economic or social policy. Only if the political parties find constructive ways of working together can we achieve, for example, reforms in the planning system, progress on old age care or the reorganisation of our higher education system and its funding.

Thirdly, Conservative Party membership – whose numbers have fallen dramatically in recent years, not least in the 34 years since I was leader (it now stands at around an eighth of the RSPB’s membership) – must be told quite clearly that the way forward is not to flirt with, let alone merge with, Nigel Farage’s populist Reform Party.

Farage, who led the campaign for Britain to leave the EU, of which we are increasingly aware, has nothing to offer for a healthy Conservative future. His saloon-bar babble, if translated into policy, would give us Liz Truss-style economics, Jeremy Corbyn-style foreign policy (which Putin would love) and a Tommy Robinson-style approach to our country’s identity (albeit Tommy Robinson in a tie).

Fourth, attacks on the so-called ‘conservatives of one nation’ – those conservatives who believe their party should seek to politically dominate the moderate centre-right – would surely relegate us to the political graveyard in the long run.

These ‘One Nation’ Conservatives include most of those who have led the party successfully over the past century. They are patriots and internationalists who believe in the central importance of well-regulated market forces that can create the means for generous social and welfare benefits.

And where does Margaret Thatcher fit into the history of the party? She was far more cautious and pragmatic than most of those who count themselves among her supporters today claim. She believed that the Conservative Party should cover a broad spectrum.

She wanted those she would have called “nerds” to own their own homes and get a share in the companies that employ them. She would have defended the idea of ​​free healthcare for all. She would never have left the European Union but would have continued to represent British interests in Europe, for example through the single market that she did so much to create.

Building on these traditions, which have led to great political and national success, the Conservative Party should now face the challenge of developing policies that enable us all to embrace change – be it demographic or technological – while preserving people’s sense of identity and community. Change is not our enemy. As the greatest European political novel put it: The leopardby Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, things must change in order to remain as they are.

Fifth, conservatives must not allow the discussion about the meaning of our national identity to be dominated by simplistic ideological arguments about immigration. Controlling legal immigration and preventing illegal entry into our country can only be prevented by two things.

First, we must recognise that pressures on the borders of wealthier countries in Europe and elsewhere will increase, for example due to population growth in Africa. These pressures must be met by working with our friends and by using development, foreign and security policies to create stronger borders.

Second, we need an active labour market policy that brings together training, education and remuneration in the public sector in order to reduce our dependence on other countries to supply key sectors of our society.

And finally, above all, the Conservative Party must understand that its long-term resurgence will be impossible if it is burdened by immature ideological prejudices – that is, if it moves to the right.

Like the British people as a whole, the Conservative Party has traditionally been moderate and civilised. It has been successful when it has tried to reach agreement rather than provoke disputes. Why on earth should we now abandon that approach after several hundred years of success?

Chris Patten, the last British Governor of Hong Kong and former EU Commissioner for Foreign Affairs, is Chancellor of Oxford University and author of The Hong Kong Diaries (Allen Lane, 2022)