Seena Shah: Campaigning very hard locally, only to lose badly, is a wake up call to the centre not the candidates

Seena Shah is an award-winning communications and marketing strategist and was a parliamentary candidate in the 2019 general election. 

We need CCHQ to step-up

Last week, I was one of many Conservative candidates who stood for local office across the country, campaigned my socks off and suffered a devastating defeat, nonetheless. Locally, there was nothing we could have done. The scale of the defeat showed that we have a national problem and something needs to change.

Chelmsford is not Brexit heartland, with just 51.9 per cent voting to leave and electing a Liberal Democrat MP in 2024. It should not be solid ground for Reform UK, yet we found ourselves in third place in the district election and just about saving second place in the county election. We are not winning the hard right vote and we are not winning the centrist vote – we simply are not winning.

Our local by-election campaign was no small feat – I ran several campaign sessions everyday, all day since the by-election was called. We had over 80 activists volunteering throughout the campaign. We attracted a shadow Secretary of State, Shadow Minsters, many Essex MPs and the Leader of the Opposition herself. We delivered hand addressed letters, personalised letters, several pieces of thoughtful literature, and canvassed around 17 per cent of voters. There is simply nothing more we could have done.

What did Reform UK do? Not very much! They had three volunteer activists, delivered one very basic flyer with the wrong area name written on it, and barely knocked on doors. What is worse, they did not understand the electoral boundaries which led to a last-minute rush to deliver literature in an area that they forgot about and launched their campaign in a pub outside of the electoral boundary too.

Despite our mass of effort and their clearly inexperienced campaigning machine, they landed themselves second place in the district election and a close third in the county election. In previous years, our level of effort would have secured a comfortable win. They will be better prepared next time.

We know this is not a local problem.

We were a casualty of the national picture and now we need CCHQ to step up. I understand the need to go back over our mistakes and brick by brick build our policies for the future, however, that is not the same as allowing a vacuum of vision to fester as we currently are.

We know what it means to be a Conservative – small state, low taxes, looking after the most vulnerable, law and order. What we do not currently know is how we get back there. The electorate will forgive us for not knowing how, yet, but how can they vote for us when they don’t know what we are trying to achieve!?

This isn’t an argument for vacuous headlines. This is an argument for communicating our vision. We must give people a reason to vote for us and going back to our core values – there is nothing controversial in that!

Let me share a pertinent quote from musician Brian Eno:

“I think charisma comes out of the sense you have that not only is somebody different but they’re also confident about it, committed to it, obsessed by it even. We don’t find uncertainty charismatic. Uncertainty doesn’t work for anybody very well, because in general the media don’t appreciate people like that. I would like to cultivate a charisma of uncertainty, a charisma of admitting that you’re making it up as you go along.”

It worked for Paul McCartney and John Lennon. It’s working for Nigel Farage and Reform UK.

This isn’t just my opinion. I spent some time at the count with the Reform UK Chelmsford Interim-Chairman, former Conservative Party member. He said that if the Conservative Party went back to Thatcherite politics, Reform UK would cease to appeal.

I also spoke to the Reform UK candidates after the count (both former Conservative Party members), I asked why they went to Reform UK, “it was easier to become a candidate” replied one. Knowing that we are crying out for good committed candidates, that was difficult to hear. I then took a look at the Reform UK website candidate application page, I read the line “no prior political experience necessary,” “free training” – they are making politics accessible in a way we are failing to do. It took me back to when I first joined the Conservative Party and was asked to apply to stand, I didn’t think it was for people like me.

The Conservative Party is the longest standing political party, and we should celebrate that, but CCHQ also needs to find a way to navigate the pitfalls of that in the political current climate. There is a deep cry from the electorate for fresh thinking, against the “political class” and a return of power to the people. Reform UK offers all of this but without any track record of delivery and over the next few years, we will watch them, closely and I am sure we will communicate all of their failures loudly.

We will not win off the back their failures alone.

They call it reform, we call it renewal. We have been talking about renewal, but what does it mean? I can tell you what the electorate wants: new people. What is CCHQ doing to encourage people to join us and stand for us? Every association I speak to tells me the same thing, they are struggling to find good new candidates and get activists out on the doorsteps. Our messaging here is broken and there is much to learn from Reform UK.

The wish list for CCHQ is long but – let’s get back to proper Conservative values, let’s make it up as we go a long, let’s bring in and nurture new talent, let’s give people a reason to vote for us again and ultimately, let’s get back to winning elections.