The Conservative party is facing an “existential threat” because the public sees everything it does through the lens of austerity, according to its deputy chairman, who warned that the Tory “ground effort is collapsing in marginal seats”.
In an interview with the Guardian, Robert Halfon said his party’s new leader ought to take advantage of the crisis gripping Jeremy Corbyn’s party by parking their “tanks on traditional Labour battlegrounds”. He called for urgent action, renewed focus on the NHS, workers rights, trade unions and a more compassionate take on welfare reform.
“I believe there are three or four genuine existential challenges to the Conservative party,” he said. “The Labour party [is] going to get [its] act together, if not now, in a couple of years [it] will get a credible leader.”
Halfon argued that Labour’s “noble tradition” of helping the underdog and representing workers had been lost because the party had been “hijacked by the far-left”.
But he said his party also faced an urgent challenge. “Our problem has been everything we do is seen in the eyes of the public through austerity,” he said, arguing that pollsters failed to pick up on “shy Tories” because people don’t want to admit they back the Conservatives.
“But they are proud to be Labour,” Halfon said. “I want people to vote for us because they are passionate about it.”
Halfon said the party’s “existential threat” was because people did not realise what they were about. He credited Cameron with sowing the seeds with the “national living wage”, an apprenticeship policy and the raising of the tax threshold. “We have not just a mile but hundreds of miles to cross,” he added.
Halfon, who has visited hundreds of local Conservative associations as part of his role as deputy chairman, said Tory infrastructure was weak, while Labour continued to attract hundreds of volunteers in constituencies.
“The ground-war, the ground effort is collapsing across the country in marginal seats but even safe seats are losing members,” he said, warning that the ageing profile of members was a worry.
He argued that remain campaigners, including himself, had failed to connect with voters who were struggling following a recession with insecure jobs, low wages and over-crowded accommodation.
“The economic arguments didn’t work for most people – why? Because they are struggling and they don’t relate to a spaghetti alphabet of organisation acronyms life the OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] or IMF [International Monetary Fund].”
But he said the post-Brexit landscape was “a huge chance for us: we need to reboot Conservatism” and that, this weekend, he would back the leadership candidate most committed to modernising the party.
He said the Conservatives should be proud to be the party of redistribution, the party of the NHS – and not BHS – to take on “crony capitalism”, and that it needed to sharply adjust its language over welfare. He said some in the party had been “Tarzan-like, beating our chests about welfare reform”, which made them appear happy to make cuts at the expense of the poorest and the disabled.
“Any welfare reform has to be 1) incremental, and 2) compassionate,” he added, calling on the Tories to “stay a mile away” from any negative depictions of people on benefits as scroungers.
