Sir John Redwood is MP for Wokingham, and is a former Secretary of State for Wales.
Some Conservatives are taking heart from the fact that in Wakefield and Tiverton & Honiton by-elections, some Tory voters stayed away rather than switching to Labour. After all, it should be easier to persuade abstainers back than to tell switchers they are wrong.
In Wakefield there was also an unusually high percentage voting for fringe parties and candidates. Independent candidates normally get less than 1 per cent of the vote, yet one received 7.6 per cent, the Yorkshire party polled 4.3 per cent, and Reform and Britain First together got 3 per cent – more than the Lib Dems. Many of these voters could be attracted to a stronger Conservative offer.
Understanding why Conservative voters abstained or voted for independent candidates is crucial for the Government. The idea of a Red Wall is unhelpful. Voters in former Labour seats voted Conservative in 2019 because they wanted something different to the Labour offer of a bigger public sector, a preoccupation with political correctness, and higher taxes, not because they wanted the same with Conservative branding.
They wanted more than Brexit in name only. They wanted a proud UK to use her new freedoms to promote prosperity and to place the UK back on the global stage without limitation from Brussels. They had concluded that sending more money to the local Council, spending more on new public buildings, and looking for the civil service to make everyone better off was not workable.
They disliked the EU model of closing down much UK productive capacity to favour continental imports. They wanted a more enterprising, freer UK where government helped people get on. They wanted home ownership for the many, more opportunities for self-employment, to set up a small business, to gain shares and bonuses by working for a good private sector firm, to receive the education and training needed for promotion Labour’s collectivist ideas instead stifled individual ambition.
They expected Conservatives to lower taxes, promote more employment, and back business. They assumed that more money for schools and hospitals would come along restraint on overall spending and the growth of bureaucracy. They did not want more quangos lecturing us on what we could say, how we should live our lives, and whether we should buy a heat pump.
They looked forward to ending the large payments to the EU and wanted overseas aid removed from countries with nuclear weapons or space programmes. Many people refused a free smart meter and opposed more surveillance as examples of creeping government control.
So why do so many now feel they have not got what they asked for? They did not expect a Conservative Chancellor to authorise huge extra quantities of money printing last year in a way that was bound to be inflationary. They did not ask him to underwrite with their money another £150bn of bond buying by the Bank of England, paying very high prices for the bonds. They certainly did not vote for a hike in National Insurance, a tax rise expressly ruled out in the Conservative Manifesto. They did not want IR35 strengthened further to put off people working for themselves.
They hoped that VAT would come down or be taken off things like domestic heating once we were free of the EU and able to set our own tax rates. When the Ukraine war added a further nasty twist to the inflationary spiral they expected the Chancellor to cut the VAT rates on electricity, gas, diesel, and petrol, not to use it as an opportunity to tax us more on these necessities.
So what should the Government do now to prove it has understood these voters? The main changes have to come from the Treasury. Bad economic policy is damaging. The hit to real incomes is too hard, taxes are too high, and current policy threatens us with a recession. The government needs a convincing growth strategy.
That requires immediate action to cut VAT on fuels to ease the squeeze and cut the prices. It means binning the planned increase in Corporation tax and stopping the attack on home produced energy through the planned windfall tax. The Chancellor rightly wants an investment-led recovery. He will not get that if he serves up higher business taxes and a recession.
The Government should go all out to create the best environment for business investment and growth in the advanced world. Strong businesses will bring more and better-paid jobs. The UK, following years in the Single Market, depends far too much on imports for temperate food, energy, and other goods which it can produce for itself.
If we matched the Irish corporation tax rate we could add to our capacity much more quickly and collect more in total business tax revenue. If the Treasury beefed up the freedoms in the Freeports that could help us grow new industries.
There are some signs that the Business department does want us to produce more of our own gas at a time of global shortage. The new oil and gas fields including Jackdaw, Cambo, and Rosebank should be brought into use. That will cut our CO2 compared to importing Liquid National Gas, create more better paid jobs, and give the Treasury another tax windfall.
There is some work now on a domestic food strategy. We could grow so much more for ourselves at a time of Russian induced shortage. Instead of EU grants to pull the trees out of our orchards we need UK help to replant. The UK, with access to more gas, could rebuild some of its lost chemicals and fertilizer industry.
This cannot await a late autumn budget. Every day we send out a high tax anti-business message more investment will be delayed or diverted. All the time we continue with current policy a sharp slowdown or a complete stop to growth is inevitable. The UK deserves better and can do better. Now is the time to set out a bold strategy for freedom and growth. If we do this the voters will return. We need a new Conservative way forward.