This month’s result was the worst ever election defeat for the Conservative Party. Who could have honestly believed back in December 2019, after our comprehensive victory over Corbyn, that at the next election we would be reduced to 121 seats?

Still, the reality is that it could have been worse. In some respects it almost feels that we’ve been given a bit of a stay of execution from many of our voters.

Despite the magnitude of our loss, the volatile political age in which we live means that if we learn the right lessons from this historic defeat, and elect the right leader who develops the right strategy, there is every chance we can not just be competitive at the next election but potentially win it. 

However, if we fail to learn the right lessons from what has happened that existential threat to the future of the Conservative Party could return again. Bizarrely, it appears that many in the Party, both defeated candidates like me and elected MPs, haven’t truly grasped what is going on and the scale of the problem. 

There are many crucial issues that need to be debated during the upcoming leadership, but for me, there are three key interconnected issues that I will be looking out for more than any other: immigration, internal Party democracy and candidate selection. 

It was very clear to myself and many other MPs and former MPs that immigration was gaining prominence as an issue

It was very clear to myself and many other MPs and former MPs that immigration was gaining prominence as an issue, and it was becoming more and more important to our voters — not just illegal migration, but also the high levels of legal migration. All of the polling bore this out — for 2019 Conservative voters in particular it was of monumental importance and kept on coming top when it came to their priorities. Time and time again we warned that we were leaving the door open to a threat on our right. The reality is we were barely listened to. 

The leadership said “we would do whatever it takes” to stop the boats but they didn’t really mean it. They were never prepared to do “whatever it takes”, which is precisely why we ended up with a half-baked Rwanda Bill that was never going to get the flights off the ground at scale. The reality is that this came after years and years of broken promises on immigration, with we as Conservatives presiding over record levels of mass migration. Our credibility on the most important issue for huge numbers of 2019 Conservative voters was completely shot. The rise of Reform and the return of Reform was inevitable.

I remember watching the manifesto launch. The former PM stated, “Re-elect me on 4th July and we will get flights to Rwanda”. Who on earth actually believed this? My voters certainly didn’t. The reality is even at this late stage, a bold commitment on the ECHR could have changed the political weather to an extent and could have saved a number of former colleagues. I hear that it was the one thing Labour feared, but again, another missed opportunity.

The reality is that many of my former colleagues and those who were lucky enough to get re-elected just don’t get it on immigration. They don’t get the monumental significance of the issue. I remember being attacked in the MPs tea room for talking about immigration too much. I was told that it was me and MPs like me who were fuelling Reform by talking about the problem. I know that many readers will find it hard to believe that there are “Conservative” MPs out there who think that if only we didn’t talk about immigration the Reform problem would go away, but believe me, they did and I suspect continue to exist within the Parliamentary Party.

The big story of the election was Farage and Reform. This was driven by the salience of immigration as an issue. Either the Conservative Party can face up to this or they can contemplate at leisure being supplanted by Reform as the preeminent force on the right of politics. 

Another issue that did us great damage during the election campaign was candidate selection — something else that needs to be urgently looked at by any new leader. For many years Conservative MPs have been well to the left of Conservative members and voters.

For some, a yellow rosette would perhaps be more appropriate than a blue one. Others seem to be lacking any convictions whatsoever and are rarely ever heard expressing a political view of any description. Some, whilst deep down possessing conservative views and values, appear to lack the courage to express them and fight for them. We do of course have a number of notable exceptions who have done the country a great service in standing up for conservatism. 

Issues around candidate selection clearly peaked ahead of the most recent General election. The rights of local associations and Party members to select their own candidates were trampled upon. Notorious “by-election rules” were brought forward to govern selections. This fully cut local members out of drawing up 3 person shortlists from which they could select a candidate. There appears to have been a deliberate attempt to delay selections for certain seats so they would be subject to these undemocratic rules in order to foist favoured candidates upon local associations. Basildon and Billericay was one key example.

Of course, the exceptional nature of what happened with the Party Chair in Basildon and Billericay stands out. Here a shortlist of 1 was presented to the local association. The wider membership of the association was completely cut out of the process. One has to ask the question, how on earth did we get to this point? 

The reality is it was just one further step along an anti-democratic pathway which had already been embarked upon. When you’ve already foisted favoured candidates on local associations and cut them out of the shortlisting, when you’ve already selected deliberately weak candidates with no local connection to go up against the “favoured candidate”, it’s an easy thing to just go one step further and stop the charade completely by imposing a single candidate.

It’s vital that candidate selection is debated by the leadership candidates and that clear pledges are made to safeguard the rights of local associations and members to select their own candidate. 

Remarkably some senior figures in the Party and former MPs such as Tobias Ellwood feel like the appropriate response to all of this is to cut members out of the process for electing the new leader of the Party. If this were to happen, the most likely response would be an enduring split on the right in British politics that would ensure Labour Party hegemony for many elections to come.

It’s right that the forthcoming leadership contest is not rushed. All these issues and others need to be debated by leadership candidates, MPs, former MPs, defeated candidates and members in detail. I hold out hope that we do learn the lessons and that we get a leader who understands them. There are some strong individuals who I believe will put themselves forward and some of their initial statements indicate they fully grasp the scale of the challenges we face and what needs to be done.

Crucial to all of this is empowering members and ensuring candidate selections are truly democratic. This alone would ensure that future MPs are less disconnected from our members and voters on crucial issues such as immigration. Over the course of the next Parliament, though, it’s vital the new leader puts immigration front and centre and demonstrates that they truly mean it when it comes to doing “whatever it takes” to secure our borders. Nothing less than this will ensure that the future of the Conservative Party remains in peril.