#james willby

James Willby

The debate on Europe within the Conservative Party is going from bad to worse. Beginning with the Business Secretary comparing current Conservative rhetoric to the speeches of Enoch Powell, to the revelation that the Prime Ministers rhetoric is causing enormous disquiet amongst our colleagues in the European parliament, with the leader of the Polish delegation telling David Cameron that unless his rhetoric on EU migration changes, it will be very difficult for them to continue working with us. Rather than seeking allies for EU reform, we’re giving a wonderful performance in the art of losing friends and alienating everyone we come into contact with. But it goes further than that. Something seems to have gone wrong at the heart of this party of ours.

In defense of my argument I’d like to offer you two substantive pieces of evidence: the EU referendum bill and the atrocious rhetoric that was directed at Bulgarian and Romanian migrants.

At the time the referendum bill was announced, I remarked to a MP that I was against it. We’d already said we’d hold a referendum in 2017 if elected, so why legislate for it now? When pressed, he explained that in the light of the Lisbon Treaty, there needed to be some form of gesture to show people we were serious about giving them a vote on Europe.  While it is of course true that one cannot vote on a treaty that has been signed, the ghost of David Cameron’s “cast iron guarantee” continues to haunt party strategists. The idea behind supporting the Wharton referendum bill, I was told, was to show we meant business and win back disaffected support. It seemed a sensible way forward. However, the threats to use the Parliament Act to force the bill into law show, in my opinion, the unpalatable truth behind the campaign to “Let Britain Decide”.

This isn’t about letting anyone have his or her say. The Wharton referendum bill is nothing less than a grubby political trap, designed to ensnare a future Labour government whilst trampling on what was – hitherto – a key principle of our democratic system: that governments may not bind the hand of their successor and that none should attempt to do so. It is not in the British national interest, but in the perceived electoral interest of the Conservative party. By putting the bill into law now, the party is attempting to booby-trap the first two years of a Miliband premiership, either forcing him to hold a referendum he opposes or cry foul when he repeals the bill. It is grossly transparent, full of short-termism, and wrong.

It is this same toxic mix that has led to the some of most disheartening debates on EU migration that I can remember, culminating in the parliamentary debate on Bulgaria and Romania. It was not pleasant. We were, we were told, importing a crime wave from Bulgaria and Romania. Some MPs even went as far as pledging to man the desks at Stanstead airport on the 1st January, allowing them to interrogate new arrivals from these countries. It is hysteria of a type that would make Joseph McCarthy proud. If Dominic Grieve can be forced to apologize for suggesting corruption is endemic to the Pakistani community, how can it be right for MPs to make such comments about Bulgarians and Romanians?

The Bulgarians and Romanians I know personally are hard-working decent people, but understandably aggrieved at the way they are being castigated by our party. And so to them, on behalf of the quiet, sensible majority, I’d like to say I’m sorry. I’m sorry that you are being so odiously used by members of my party. I’m sorry that the fear of UKIP has made the supporters of European enlargement turn their back on the principles they once defended. The Bulgarian President is entirely right to say this debate risks damaging the UK’s image as a tolerant and open nation. As the Economist has already stated, you are very welcome here. I hope many of you will come and lend your talents to our country and that our party will finally see the opportunity you represent. You see, if the Conservative party really wanted to prevent a victory UKIP in 2014, it could simply ask for your vote. Rather than telling you what a problem you are, we should tell you we appreciate your service to this nation and invite you to join us on the path of EU reform.

This fact – that EU migrants have the same voting rights as UK nationals – has been completely absent from our internal debate. Were we to mobilize them effectively in our favour, UKIP’s hope of winning the European elections would be dashed. As to its likelihood I’m not hopeful, but who knows?

James Willby

I’ve often listened incredulously to otherwise sensible Conservatives opposing the idea that Government should pick winners. The topic seems to cause consternation in many right-leaning circles. “Invest public money in companies? Pick winners? What is this: Cuba?!” they cry. What would you prefer, I ask them. That we pick losers? Cue more consternation and a reiteration of the fact its taxpayers’ money being invested. How is that in any way different to what a pension fund or banks does, I enquire. Why are you happy with commercial entities investing your money for a return, but not elected representatives using it to produce growth and jobs?

Needless to say its not a particularly well received notion – akin to being pro-EU – but as a rather brave Conservative confided to me recently, the words “industrial strategy” should not be a taboo for someone on the right.

If our aim is to get Britain back on its feet, it is utterly nonsensical to write-off a potential avenue of endeavor. Forget being economic Meatloafs – protesting how we’d do anything for growth, but we won't do that – lets be fiscal Roy Orbisons and give business the Big O it deserves: anything it wants, anything it needs, it gets it, and sometimes that means doing what up until now has been utter heresy for many in the Conservative rank and file. It’s time to become proactive about identifying the industries of the future and giving them a leg-up, or more succinctly, pick some winners.

And yet unbeknownst to the party at large, that is exactly what the leadership has been doing.

In 2009 at the annual CBI conference, George Osborne was heard to lament the fact that the then Labour government had not conducted a single trade mission to sell British goods overseas. Since taking office in 2010, this has been completely reversed. Take the Prime Minister’s trade mission to China last week. In addition to ministers, ambassadors, and civil servants on the trip, there were a host of men and women from across British business. Yes, there were the Jaguar Land Rovers and the Rolls Royce’s, but there were also SMEs from across the UK. From food manufacturers to retailers, they encompassed an incredibly diverse range of fields. They were there because they showcase the best of British – being innovative, creative and dynamic. And they were there because they recognized the opportunity they were being afforded.

Do you think these SMEs could ever have secured access to China, the world’s largest economy, without the help of Her Majesty’s Government? No local business conference or trade show could possibly give them the opportunity that trip afforded. If that isn’t “picking winners”, I don’t what is. Further afield, we’ve seen the State investing in graphene, “quantum technology” (don’t laugh), giving tax breaks to video games and creating an office of unconventional gas to help monetise shale. These are all examples of the State seeing the growth potential in a technology and wisely choosing to invest.

So we do pick winners, we should pick winners and it’s about time we had the guts to say so. As GK Chesterton observed, “I did try to found a little heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to it, I discovered that it was orthodoxy.” Amen to that.

James Willby

You might remember that there was a break-in at Labour HQ. The joke was that the thieves had gone in looking for a policy but hadn’t come back with anything of note.

There’s been talk of “predators and producers”, of “the squeezed middle”, but the only clear instances where Miliband has produced anything like a coherent vision were with his use of Disraeli’s one nationism and his proposal for a freeze on energy bills. Then with the intervention of former Conservative Prime Minister Sir John Major, Miliband thought he had finally struck gold.

“Many people face a choice this winter between heating and eating” he quoted at a despairing David Cameron.  “These are the ordinary people of this country who this Prime Minister will never meet and whose lives they will never understand.”  It was, to quote a boxing term, a straight KO and the Prime Minister returned to Downing Street to lick his wounds. So, should we Conservatives be worried by such a performance? Does it herald the change of fortunes Labour activists have been so desperate to see? Hardly. 

The Labour leader’s use of Disraeli and Major, whilst good politics, illustrates his Party’s fundamental weakness – simply put, it has no idea who it is or what it’s for. From free schools to referenda, from reducing the taxation on the poorest to green investment, everything that is fresh and exciting is coming from the ongoing tussle between the Coalition parties. The fact Miliband is forced to rely on the words of former Conservative Prime Ministers in his battle with Mr. Cameron shows just how bad the situation has become. Nineteen months from a general election and Labour’s ideas factory is a wizened burnt-out old husk.

Despite endless internal reviews and conversations, it has produced nothing of substance and Miliband’s tenure has seen him hop from bandwagon to bandwagon in a vain attempt to capture the public mood. Chris Bryant’s attempt to get tough on immigration blew up in his face. Tristram Hunt is now floundering over free schools, first backing them then seemingly veering away, and on HS2 I doubt anybody within the Labour Party knows what their policy actually is.

In laying claim to Disraeli’s one-nationism and Major’s compassionate conservatism, Miliband invites us to judge him by their principles. Does his opposition to deficit reduction chime with Disraeli’s observation that “Debt is a prolific mother of folly and of crime”? If he becomes Prime Minister, will he seriously be able to claim that Labour “inherited a sick economy and passed on a sound one” as Major did?  Perhaps we can best sum up Labour’s dilemma by paraphrasing Thatcher. You see Ed; the problem with ‘Milibandism’ is that eventually you run out of other people’s ideas. It might be time to get some of your own. 

James Willby

What will be the legacy of 'Cameronism'? Some would suggest that after only three years of government – and then at the head of a coalition – one should not deign to give a name to the philosophy of the current occupant of 10 Downing Street. I disagree. By the time of the next general election, David Cameron will have led the Conservative Party for over a decade. When the history of this period is written, I have no doubt that focus of such narratives will dwell on themes including the economy, British interventions aboard and the relationship with Europe.

For me though, there is an untold story of Cameronism, something that has quietly developed during his time in office and which, in my opinion, might be his greatest legacy. That is, the evolving nature of the British-Irish relationship.

From the apology for the events of Bloody Sunday, to the first visit by a British Monarch to Ireland since the founding of the Republic, Cameron’s term of office has witnessed events that have seen a growth in British-Irish relationship that few could have predicted. The decision to allow the Olympic torch to pass through Dublin was one such occurrence.  Rather than see the symbol of the Olympic spirit being forced into a jarring volte-face at the border, it continued its journey through the Emerald Isle towards Dublin. It was carried by athletes who would compete against our own and cheered by their home crowd. It was a wonderful example of the changing nature of British-Irish relations. You needed only to hear the enormous roar that greeted the Irish entry to the Olympic stadium to realise just how important a place this nation occupies in our hearts. But this relationship is not built of pure symbolism. There’s meat on its figurative bones.

In late 2010, Ireland’s banks were on the verge of collapse. Despite all the efforts of the Irish government to stave off the financial crisis, it was forced to seek a bailout from the EU and IMF. At that time, Britain had resolutely refused to be part of any EU-led bailout program for Greece or other embattled euro zone economies. And yet in the case of Ireland an exception was made. In the days after the announcement of the EU bailout, the British Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne announced a £7 billion bilateral loan to the Irish Republic. When questioned later that day on the terms of the loan, Osborne explained that the UK was not looking to make a quick buck: this was about aiding a friend in need. This matched my sentiments entirely. When asked by a young Greek politician why the UK had been so ready to help Ireland but not other euro zone nations in need, the answer came readily and without effort. It was, I told him, because they’re family.

Before this can be misinterpreted, I am keenly aware of the different paths our nations have chosen over the last forty years. On Europe, for example, the positions could not be more different. Britain is edging towards the European periphery whilst the Republic, as part of the euro zone, heads towards the further integration of a banking union. We will both continue to develop along these lines in what we hope are the best interests of our respective peoples. But to deny a spirit of kinship would be foolhardy. Indeed, there is barely a family in Britain that does not contain some Irish heritage.

And there is so much more we can do together. If the President of the United States can attend cabinet on a one-off visit, why not the Irish Taoiseach on a more regular basis? Why is there no unified energy policy with the only other country with which we share a land border? Where are the joint infrastructure projects to both boost investment into the UK and kick-start the Irish economy? In these and other areas more cooperation is vital, but let us not forget that progress in such areas would have been unthinkable only a few years ago.

Cameronism may indeed end up giving us far less than it promised, but with regard to our relationship with Ireland it would be thoroughly churlish to ignore it's achievements.

James Willby

As it turns out, the public wasn’t. 

Despite all the polling, all the focus testing – all the attempts to create a platform that would appeal to the British people – the Conservative Party lost the election of 2005, with four years effort culminating in a measly 0.7% increase in its share of the national vote. There followed the usual moratorium, analysis, a fair amount of backbiting and ultimately the election of a new leader. A nice young man, who in his first conference speech in 2006, gave his opinion on what had been at the root of the previous year’s defeat. “Instead of talking about the things that most people care about, we talked about what we most cared about,” he said. “While parents worried about childcare, getting kids to school, balancing work and family life, we were banging on about Europe.”

The audience smiled, but inwardly took no notice. Bless him, they thought. The problem wasn’t that the party had once again fallen prey to what had brought down both Thatcher and Major. No, it was that the policies hadn’t been Eurosceptic enough. Forget not joining the hated euro and repealing a few laws. What was needed was to break away from the whole dratted construction! Put up the drawbridge! Man the battlements! But they sat and clapped and bided their time, knowing that sooner or later the nice young man would come to see things their way.

In the last two years, this issue of Britain’s involvement with the club of nations sitting on our doorstep has once again come to dominate the headlines. We’ve had the veto on the fiscal compact, the balance of Competences review, the Prime Minister’s Bloomberg speech, the Fresh Start group, the cut in the EU’s multi-annual financial framework, the launch of “Let Britain Decide” - a new website encouraging supporters to lobby their MP to support an in/out referendum – and endless headlines about a “new war on the red-tape from Brussels”.

So, that’s all worked hasn’t it? The conference audience 2006 has been proved right. We’ve capitalised on the groundswell of public opinion and are being carried forwards on the crest of the wave. Well, no.

In answer to a YouGov poll from 18th June 2013, both the Conservatives and Labour were chosen by 21% of respondents as the party they most trusted on Europe. Let me repeat that: Labour, who have ruled out a referendum, opened the borders and signed the UK up to the hated Lisbon treaty, is as trusted on Europe as we are. All our promises of referenda, of repatriation, of reclaiming national sovereignty have made no difference to our electoral standing. In fact, they may have worsened it and for reasons that the party faithful cannot understand.

As Janan Ganesh recently observed, the Conservative Party just refuses to accept that the British people don’t really care about Europe.  Like a spurned lover, it continues making professions of undying euroscepticism in the belief a coquettish Britannia will one day say yes to its worldview. But history says otherwise. No party with a virulently anti-European agenda has ever won a general election. Be it Michael Foot’s suicidal campaign in 1984 or Hague’s twenty-four hours to save the pound at the start of the noughties, the electorate has resolutely rejected each in-turn.

The public have told the Conservative Party they aren’t thinking what it’s thinking. Maybe its time the party listened.