John Redwood: Reasons to be cheerful

Sir John Redwood is a former MP for Wokingham and a former Secretary of State for Wales.

Conservatives need to cheer up. The country is desperate for change, and the Government has suffered a catastrophic loss of support.

It is now trying to persuade a very sceptical public it wants to do some conservative things after years of fighting against lower migration, Brexit freedoms, and lower taxes. The Conservatives are the Official Opposition; they can use this platform to express the nation’s anger about what is happening, and to offer better solutions.

True, the local election results were poor, but that was always likely given the amazing results when these seats were last contested. Kemi Badenoch has rightly set out how past Conservative governments got migration wrong, and is now developing a much better policy to meet the widespread concern that the country cannot cope with the large numbers that have been coming in.

She has also moved policy on over Net Zero, recognising the damage high energy prices did to business and to family budgets. She has seen the need for a  more realistic policy than the zealotry of Mr Miliband and the relentless pursuit of ever dearer energy . He wants to  make us more  dependent on expensive imports and wants to  heap extra costs on through carbon capture and storage.

Nor should we forget that there are Conservatives achievements from our years in government that are worth reminding people about, results which need defending from a Labour Party determined to undermine them.

We can be proud of Michael Gove’s school reforms, and Nick Gibbs’ work on phonics to improve literacy. The UK moved up the world league tables to a good position in literacy and numeracy, the two keys to young  people having a better future. The PIRLS study shows Britain fourth in reading, out of 43 countries – the highest ranking western country. Bridget Phillipson’s dreadful education bill will undermine this progress.

When our party won office in 2010, unemployment was 7.8 per cent; when we left office it was 4.2 per cent. Under Conservative economic management, unemployment stayed lower and the economy generated a lot of new jobs.

Since Covid, the UK has grown faster than Germany; by the end of 2024 British GDP was 3.4 per cent above pre-Covid levels whilst German was 0.1 per cent down. Since Brexit our service exports, especially to non-EU countries. have taken off. The UK has gone from being the world’s fourth-largest service exporter to second.

Conservatives got Brexit through. Believers in democracy should respect the results of a referendum, but we faced relentless opposition from the current Labour cabinet members who wanted to undermine or reverse the decision of the voters.

As a result, the UK is now saving more than £13bn a year on EU contributions and is not going to be liable for a chunk of the €800bn new debt the EU is running up. Rachel Reeves’ sums would have been even more difficult if we were still in the EU.

Meanwhile Britain has been able to negotiate trade agreements with the Pacific Partnership and India whilst ducking the worst of the high tariffs Donald Trump has imposed on the EU.

A good example of the benefits Brexit can bring is in the field of student opportunity. Under the EU’s Erasmus scheme, the majority of the money was spent on helping European students come study here; our students were reluctant to apply to continental universities.

Out of the EU, under the previous government’s Turing scheme, all the money is spent on British students. They can choose from a long list of universities all round the world, allowing them to choose American, Australian, Canadian institutions, and others, in addition to German or French. Turing helps more Brittish students, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

People do need to be reminded of our successes as well as hearing that we have learned from the failures that led to the defeat. They will come to mourn the loss of those things which the last government got right that Labour reverses or destroys.

Rebuilding trust requires not only honest admission of past mistakes, but reminder of past examples of good administration. The Conservatives were in touch with the public mood to win in 2015, 2017 and 2019.

Conservatives have a big opportunity to lead the opposition to Labour’s anti-enterprise, high-tax economic policy, which undermines growth and is creating an exodus of money and talent. The Shadow Cabinet can lead the opposition to the inadequate and unbelievable flip flop over migration policy, and to any sell out Labour proposes to the EU.

The Government wants us to give away a crucial US/UK naval and aviation base in the Chagos – and give a dowry to the winners to boot. It has shown it is incapable of standing up for the Britissh national interest. If ministerss now propose a so-called ‘youth mobility scheme’, just a few days after saying it wants to reduce migrant numbers, it will confirm the government has not changed in the way people want.

Conservatives have the opportunity to lead constructive opposition to a bad government. That is a vital task for a nation so let down by government failures on migration, energy, and so much else besides.