Let’s be clear where blame for this Tory disaster really lies

‘Good-morning, good-morning!’ the General said
When we met him last week on our way to the line ...
“He’s a cheery old card,” grunted Harry to Jack
As they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack.

But he did for them both by his plan of attack.

Conservative candidates slogging around their constituencies in these last few days of the campaign could be forgiven for having Siegfried Sassoon’s masterfully brief and bitter poem in mind. As they line up in the trenches next Thursday, waiting for the off, they know in their hearts that all too few of them are going to be returning to Parliament in a week’s time. And, as in 1917, it’s the leadership that has done for them with its plan of attack.

Six weeks back, when the election was called, I urged Tory voters to return to the colours. I didn’t know then, of course, that we were planning to run a political-campaign equivalent to the first day of the Somme. Strong Conservatives, MPs who have stood up for Brexit and conservative values, dedicated party workers, all have been pushed out into a campaign that could never succeed, fought on the wrong ground, based on the wrong issues, ineptly conducted and run. It is they who will pay the price.

For it is important not to engage in self-delusion, the besetting sin of the Tory party in recent months. At best we face a 1997-style disaster – a result that would now be regarded as a triumph against the odds – and it could easily be a lot worse.

Almost everyone is going to be saying this in a week’s time. But no one is going to be listening then. The attention will have switched to Labour. That’s why I say it now. After all, maybe a sufficiently bleak and honest prognosis might yet encourage some discontented Conservatives to hold their nose and come out and vote for us to help limit the disaster. Don’t give Labour a supermajority – or the “we’re beaten, but please don’t be mean to us” strategy, as some have described it.

So let us hope we can yet avoid the very worst. But it’s going to be bad – and it’s important to put responsibility in the right place.

Yes, Nigel Farage and Reform UK have split our vote. But the Conservative Party doesn’t have a God-given right to occupy the Right of British politics. Reform is perfectly entitled to stand against us if it wants to. It’s not up to them to care about the institutional future of the Conservative Party. That’s our job. The only reason Reform is damaging us is because we have been such poor representatives of genuine conservative politics ourselves.

Which takes us to where the responsibility really lies – on the party leadership, their advisers, and their ministerial supporters, outmanoeuvred, surrounded by yes-men, oblivious of public opinion, blind to the consequences of their decisions.

Since the autumn reshuffle and the disastrous mistake of returning to Cameronism (including by bringing back the man himself), since the persistent failure to do what was necessary to control the small boats problem, disaster has been inevitable. The only question that remained was when our troops would be asked to go over the top into the machine-guns.

A poor campaign has been compounded by the appalling betting scandal and its ponderous handling. I admit that, as it spread, I seriously considered cutting up my party card. If, as it seemed, some Conservatives’ first reaction to an election campaign was to think about making a fast buck from it, maybe some in the party really were as venal and heedless of the national interest as our opponents said.

My sense of disgust has dissipated, but my sense of anger has not. A majority of 80 has been wasted, with the only real achievement being delivering the 2016 referendum result. We face years of self-righteous hectoring, controlling, damaging Labour government, and there is nothing we can do about it.

Well, almost nothing. We can come out and vote for Conservatives on July 4. And then, beginning on July 5, we must rebuild. The Conservative Party as we know it may well be badly damaged or even largely wiped out. So to revive conservative ideas, to bring real conservatives together after the cataclysm, perhaps we will need to create a new movement, one for “reformed conservatism”, to coin a phrase.

Not a new party, but a movement to revive Conservatism based on conservative ideas, and reaching out to everyone who wants to see them prosper one day again.

This movement cannot include people who should really be in parties to our Left. It certainly can’t include those responsible for the strategy leading to the current disaster. What it can include are all those who want to rebuild genuine conservatism once again – wherever they may sit now. And what it can do is to start work on a fresh conservative programme with a truly national appeal which, eventually, can offer the British people the genuine choice that they haven’t had at this election.

So vote wisely on 4 July. And let’s start rebuilding the day after.