You will hear both Labour and Reform tell you “it's time for a change”. But the only change they offer is change for the worse.
I heard this promise of “change” five years ago at the local elections in 2019. At the height of the Brexit dramas, my local Conservatives were replaced with a Residents’ group that has been running Uttlesford District Council since. People felt Conservative councillors had been there for too long, and voted for a change. So what happened after?
Well, since then, the Residents’ group has lost millions of pounds suing Stansted Airport and losing. They didn’t collect the bins for three months last Christmas because they forgot to renew the contract. And this week we discovered that they forgot to send out 2,500 postal voters, disenfranchising a large proportion of the constituency.
Voters in Uttlesford certainly got the change they voted for - and they don’t like it. It was change for the worse.
I fear a lot of people around the country may be about to experience the same thing. Don’t get me wrong, I understand the frustration, and in many cases, anger. People are understandably upset on issues like rising immigration and the cost of Net Zero.
But the Conservatives have put in place measures to substantially reduce illegal migration, such as the Rwanda policy, which Keir Starmer has pledged to cancel, leaving us with no deterrent for the small boats. Similarly, the Conservative government sensibly slowed the move to ban sales of new petrol and diesel cars to 2035, when we saw people were not ready to switch to electric. Labour have said they will reverse our changes and make it 2030 again, that's just five years from now.
These are the kinds of policies that will have an impact on the lives of Daily Express readers. Yet when I meet voters on the doorstep and explain this, some will say “Oh I’m not voting Labour, I’m voting Reform”.
While most Conservative voters I am speaking to are sticking with our party, many up and down the country are considering voting Reform this Thursday. Sadly, they will split the vote and let Labour win in places Labour has never won before, creating a Labour super-majority.
The way the voting system works, enough votes for Reform risks us losing hundreds of Tory MPs and just getting one or two Reform MPs in exchange while Labour takes the rest. This isn’t about jobs for Conservative MPs, it’s about what you will lose if we surrender to Labour for a generation.
If you think immigration is too high now, Labour will make it even higher with an effective amnesty on illegal migrants. If you think taxes are too high now, they will be much higher with Labour. In particular, Labour will tax pensioners more heavily. Real impacts on real lives. Labour will also undo the good work we have done on Brexit at a time when we need to finish the job and use our freedoms to create more opportunities.
After the US Presidential election this year we may yet have an opportunity for a major UK-USA free trade deal. Instead, Labour is looking back to the EU, which is currently in turmoil. When I debated Jonathan Reynolds, Labour’s Business Secretary last Monday, he refused to rule out bringing back the European Court of Justice to have the final say on UK laws in exchange for closer alignment. A matter Conservatives settled last year.
The world is in turmoil, just this weekend, we saw images of riots in France again after their election results. Prime Minister Modi unexpectedly recently lost his majority in India. And in the US, voters are rightly concerned about whether either of their presidential candidates are up to the job.
Now is a time for serious politics. If people don’t vote Conservative, we will swap large numbers of experienced Conservative MPs for lots of Labour MPs and a few inexperienced Reform candidates. Farage and a handful of Reform MPs will not do the hard work in select committees and debates that limit the damage Labour can do. Worst of all, we could lose our ability to hold the Labour party to account.
This is why I am writing to urge people to back local Conservative candidates and our shared values by voting Conservative this Thursday. All our lives depend on it.
A version of this article was originally published in the Express, during the July 2024 election campaign
