Katie Lam: Don’t look at the government’s majority, look at how we’ve made them change course

Katie Lam is part of the Shadow Home Office team, the MP for the Weald of Kent and a former advisor in Downing Street.

This disastrous Labour Government has the joint-biggest parliamentary majority since the Second World War. Looking at the Commons arithmetic alone, it can be difficult to imagine how the Conservatives could ever affect change, or prevent the Government from inflicting even more damage on the country.

And yet what we’ve actually seen, time and again since the election, is that change from opposition is genuinely possible.

In January, Keir Starmer labelled calls for a national inquiry into grooming and rape gangs “a far-right bandwagon”; by June, he was launching such a national inquiry, which he now described as “practical, common-sense politics”. After so many people were called racist for talking about the phenomenon of predominantly Pakistani gangs, it’s been astonishing to hear Yvette Cooper (before she was moved) and Jess Phillips both acknowledge this reality in the past few months.

That remarkable sea change didn’t come from nowhere. Kemi Badenoch, Chris Philp, and many others relentlessly pressured the Government to conduct a full national inquiry into these horrific crimes, building on the incredible work and courage of victims, survivors, whistleblowers, and journalists. Despite the size of Labour’s majority, and the role of Labour councils in covering up these crimes, the Government was forced into a complete change of tone and policy.

This isn’t a one-off.

In March, Robert Jenrick was able to overturn the Sentencing Council’s disgraceful two-tier sentencing guidelines, which would have encouraged judges to give more lenient sentences to racial and religious minorities. After initially waving the guidelines through Shabana Mahmood (then Justice Secretary, now Home Secretary) was forced to withdraw them. Just before she made way for David Lammy last week, she announced plans to allow future justice secretaries to veto any future proposal for sentencing guidelines.

Once again, a Conservative campaign was able to totally change the Government’s approach to one of the major issues of the day.

More recently, colleagues like Nick Timothy and Claire Coutinho have managed to frustrate the Government’s plans to introduce a legal definition of Islamophobia, which would effectively protect Islam from criticism and satire. After launching a rigged consultation which was initially restricted to ‘key stakeholders’, Angela Rayner was forced to open up it to the public.

We must ensure Steve Reed keeps to that but once ordinary people had made their voices heard, the Government announced that the consultation would be delayed (labelling the responses of normal citizens “spam” in the process).

Despite its large majority this Government is clearly – and especially after the weekend – incredibly weak. Sir Keir Starmer came into Downing Street with no plan for how to grow our economy, control our borders, or fix our public services. As we saw when he failed to cut welfare spending, he’s being held hostage by his backbenchers, many of whom are totally out of step with the instincts of the British people.

With sufficient determination and energy, Conservatives can achieve real change from opposition. Campaigns like the ones that I’ve mentioned also make it clear that we’re serious about fixing the problems that our country faces.

After the biggest electoral defeat for a sitting government in British history, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that public trust is hard to win back. But, as the old saying goes, it’s always better to show than to tell.

And there will be many more opportunities to inflict defeat on this Labour Government in the coming months: in her migration white paper, the former Home Secretary committed to a consultation on the rules around Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR).

Right now, after just five years, those who come to Britain can stay indefinitely, access state support, and begin the path to citizenship. My shadow Home Office colleagues and I have been calling for ILR to be completely reformed: to extend the qualifying period, to remove the entitlement to benefits, and to withdraw it automatically from anyone who commits a crime or is no longer earning enough to cover their costs. This would save hundreds of billions of pounds.

The upcoming consultation, which we expect Mahmood to honour, will be an opportunity to make our voices heard, and to give a platform to the millions of hard-working British people who are sick to death of mass migration.

The next few years will not be easy. Inevitably, this Government will be able to do real harm to our country. However, Conservatives can, and must, do what we can to limit that damage, and to force the Government into adopting policies which address the challenges that we face.

So don’t lose hope – we’ve already been able to achieve so much.