The problem with the Tories is that many MPs are in the wrong party, warns Lord Cruddas

I recently heard Sir Geoffrey Cox KC MP (former Attorney General) say on the radio that if the Labour Party won the next election with something in the order of a 200-seat majority, then from a practical perspective, that would likely pose considerable difficulties for the Conservative Party in mustering sufficient matching shadow ministerial roles.

Such a large victory would be bad for democracy, he said. He added that the Conservative Party needed to show voters good conservative values and remind them why they should be elected again.

This is not singling out Sir Geoffrey. His comments are just the most recent iteration from senior members of the Conservative party which continue to ignore some basics. The basics being they are the cause of the current dire state of affairs.

History tells us that over millennia, civilisations, empires, governments and institutions fail from within.

Not that they may have not succumbed to some natural disaster or lost some major battle or other apparent external event but that they no longer had the resilience, fortitude, clarity of vision, drive and ambition to keep things together and keep going after the defining event. They had been hollowed out from within. They lacked leadership.

Since its original foundation in 1834 the Conservative Party has been one of the most successful political parties in the western world.

Its success was built on [generally] liberal economic policies, preferring free markets; deregulation; lower taxation; incentivising the public to aspire to improve themselves in many ways, but particularly in the education field (thereby affording independence and liberty of choice); expected the police and the civil servants to do what is expected of them i.e. their jobs, and adopted a social policy of a more conservative approach.

The latter though has given way over this last ten years or so to what some term as a more progressive social policy.

Propagated as being a good thing because it is expressed as being diverse, equitable and inclusive but it is anything but. It is inequitable, exclusive and highly destructive of harmony and creates a culture of victimhood both historic and current.

The liberal economic policies have given way to more state interference where frankly idiotic targets have been plucked from the air without a proper regard to the practical consequences of implementing a huge range of social and climate related issues and not even questioning whether they should be at all.

The role of a responsible government is to weigh up a range of competing pressure points on a subject and the issues it throws up, all based on a proper analysis of the competing information. This has been sadly lacking in so much of the legislation that has been coming out of the current government. They are not doing what they have been elected to do, to represent the people.

People up and down the country can see this clearly on social and climate issues but the government and other elected representatives don’t want to acknowledge this, as they think they know best. It is sheer arrogance. There is a bias and clear disconnect here between the people and many of their elected representatives which has only been getting bigger.

We have seen a Conservative Party (and a wider Parliament both lower and upper houses) actively working against the will of the people trying to stop and frustrate their Brexit vote.

The sort of behaviour you would associate with a theocracy like Iran where the Council of Guardians decide if the laws in its parliament comply with their interpretation of Sharia law.

In the UK context you just need to substitute elected MPs effectively saying this piece of legislation doesn’t comply with my interpretation of certain values or even just my values regardless of what our manifesto said or a referendum result!

Quite shameful of Parliament – hardly democracy! But it isn’t the only example of, in effect, contempt for the people.

Again, we have exceptionally high levels of taxation contrary to principles we have set out in the manifesto. We have dysfunctional government departments, HMRC, The Land Registry, the Home Office etc and some with staff not wanting to come back into the office, or to work 4 days a week from home for the same money. All in a terrible state.

The police not enforcing some laws when they should and then enforcing some laws, particularly in relation to civil disobedience and highways interference in a way which unequivocally conveys a highly partisan approach.

Those responsible shouldn’t remain in the police.

There are also bodies some established by a conservative government, though some not, where the government has either divested itself of powers which they shouldn’t have or such bodies which they have established have an undue influence on the implementation of Government policy e.g. the OBR. It fudges implementation and also responsibility for failure to implement.

So, I would say two things to Sir Geoffrey and the senior members of the conservative party about their concerns of what a substantial labour majority could mean for democracy.

Firstly, the origins of this threat are within your own parliamentary party.

You all need to look into the mirror and be honest about who you are – hard as that might be. There are many current members of the conservative party who shouldn’t be there, including some ministers.

It is obvious that their natural home is in another party to the left. Quite simply they don’t represent conservative values. And the leaders or aspiring leaders of the Conservative Party need to understand that to try and pretend otherwise is at best disingenuous.

The people will know. No one so far in that cohort of leaders and aspiring leaders has remotely demonstrated either a proper sense of leadership in areas for which they are responsible by getting a grip on the departments they lead or have led.

Nor have they demonstrated any remotely close intellectual grasp of a big picture strategic view of what they need to get back to and how to build the messaging on that strategy.

For some that is because they are in the wrong political party.

The second thing I would say is if you don’t understand this and don’t demonstrate that you do and how you will change things then the public and in particular a great number who have voted Conservative over the years and especially so at the last election will tell you in the same terms as Sir Leopold Amery spoke to Chamberlain in 1940, quoting Oliver Cromwell, “You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you”.

The history books will then have a final piece on the Conservative Party.