Five big arguments the British Tory leadership candidates need to have

UK Conservative Party leadership candidates must be bolder in thrashing out key issues which will otherwise bedevil whoever makes it into No. 10.

Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak are the final two candidates for the Tory party leadership run-off following a vote on July 20, 2022. Pictures: AFP

The Tory leadership debates have been combative affairs. Barely a day goes by without a party grandee urging the two candidates to stop these blue-on-blue attacks. They worry it hands ammo to Keir Starmer. Labour has already got a slick video out using the candidates’ own words against the government.

But the Tories need to distinguish between necessary combat of ideas and pointless arguments about the cost of suits or earrings. There are some arguments that political parties, like families, need to have. But as with families, the tone matters hugely. Having been friends with Rishi Sunak for decades and known Liz Truss since she became an MP 12 years ago, I’d say they can both argue constructively. They are both unusually interested in big ideas. So the genuine differences between them should help improve debate. They don’t need to fight over trivialities (which are often the bitterest arguments) or manufacture differences.

So in the spirit of the new relationship book Five Arguments All Couples (Need To) Have, here are five disputes that will benefit the Tories.

The first is the one they are having, and with some vigour: are the Tories fiscal conservatives or not? The huge tax cuts Truss is offering are the main policy reason she is ahead in the polls. But tax cuts without any reduction in spending takes the Tories into a very different place from where they have been historically. They shouldn’t go there without a proper debate and understanding of what it means for them electorally. However popular tax cuts may be, they will make it much harder for the Tories to denounce magic money trees or attack Labour for unfunded promises.

If the pair keep arguing about this, whoever wins will have a mandate for the approach they take. Given how much this question divides the party, and Tory MPs in particular, it is worth thrashing out now.

The second is on energy. In the debates both Sunak and Truss have declared they are in favour of fracking where there is local consent. But there doesn’t appear to be anywhere where locals are in favour, despite the jobs and money it would bring. So, what to do? If fracking won’t be part of the UK energy mix, how would either candidate fill the gaps?

This issue deserves urgent attention because the energy market is fast-changing. This winter will be brutal as Russia uses gas supplies to exert leverage over Europe, and particularly Germany. Moscow is already making it impossible for the continent’s largest economy to fill its gas reserves now, so expect prices to rocket over the winter as Gazprom dials up and down the flow.

Talk is needed about how to boost homegrown energy supplies such as wind farms … Scroby Sands is a major offshore UK enterprise located in the North Sea. Picture: AFP

Even after this winter, the issue will not be resolved. No democracy will want to go back to relying on Russian gas. This will put more pressure on those energy sources, such as Norwegian gas, that Britain uses at present. Sunak has spoken about wanting Britain to be energy independent by 2045. Given the need for resilience, there is a strong case for this. But it requires much more discussion about the trade-offs involved. For example, should we build more nuclear capacity, even though it is traditionally more expensive? This should be a pressing conversation. Energy prices will be sky-high in the winter of 2023-24 too. We need to boost homegrown supplies, everything from solar panels on public buildings to floating wind farms.

The third is “levelling up”. The 2016 Brexit referendum began a political realignment which three years later led the Tories to win their biggest majority for 30 years, based in part on the sense that the current economic model was not working for large parts of the country. Levelling up was Johnson’s answer. It was meant to bring prosperity to these places. But it remains little more than a sound bite. Both Truss and Sunak say they support it.

The biggest political challenge is what can be delivered by the time of the next election. Skills and infrastructure, particularly digital, can help in the medium term. But what will the new PM be able to point to in these constituencies by the time of the next election? Does the local high street feel more pleasant and safer than before?

The fourth is free speech. One of the first decisions the new leader will face is what to do about the Online Harms Bill, which targets the still undefined concept of “legal but harmful” content. Both Sunak and Truss have said they want to ensure this doesn’t impinge on free speech. The logical consequence is to drop that section of the bill, although Nadine Dorries, a vocal Truss supporter, has said a Truss premiership would see it proceed. But rather than talking opaquely about this, the Tories should confront the question head on. While protecting children from straying on to sites that glamorise suicide is one thing, deciding that legal content is unfit for adults is quite another. More and more free speech questions will pop up in the coming years and the Tories need an intellectual framework for dealing with them.

Boris Johnson won’t fade into the background, so the Tories need to work out what they think of him now. Picture: AFP

The last argument is about Boris Johnson. His legacy for the party is complicated: he vanquished Corbynism, broke the Brexit deadlock and created a new electoral coalition. He was also responsible for his own downfall. Unforced errors made the positions of his colleagues untenable, hence the flood of resignations that brought him down. If the Tories don’t work out what they think of him now, the question will bedevil them, particularly as the sheer force of his personality means he won’t fade into the background.

Claims by Dorries of a “coup” risk creating a myth that could destabilise the party for years. It ignores the fact that by the end, Johnson had lost the confidence of the vast majority of Tory MPs, who would certainly have voted to remove him in a confidence ballot had he not resigned.

The Tories need to learn to make hard choices again. However politically skilful and electorally valuable Johnson was, he stored up problems. The Tories need to get back to accepting that, as Kemi Badenoch puts it, politics is about trade-offs.

The new prime minister won’t have much time to think once they get into office: they will be firefighting. It is not just the NHS backlogs, but how the health service gets through this winter. If ambulance services are struggling in July, one dreads to think how they will cope come January. If the Tories don’t have these big arguments now, there won’t be time later. These questions need resolving and a leadership contest is the best place to do that.

(James Forsyth is political editor of The Spectator)

The Times