Conservatives Want PM To Leave ECHR, Slash Migration, Start Fracking & Cut Taxes

The next Conservative Leader should listen to their party's Councillors.

Hello and welcome to another edition of the Brexiteer Bulletin. I hope you had an enjoyable weekend and a huge well done to the Lionesses for bringing it home!

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Conservative Manifesto For Victory

If the next Conservative Leader is to win another majority for their party, they should pay serious attention to the views of Tory Councillors.

An incredibly revealing piece of research conducted recently by Savanta ComRes polled over 500 local Conservative Councillors.

When it comes to the leadership race itself, it appears the election may currently be closer than many had anticipated.

Liz Truss only has a tiny 2-point lead over Rishi Sunak, with 32% of Conservative Councillors still unsure as to whether they will vote for Truss or Sunak.

Regardless of who wins the leadership contest - I still think it will be Truss - they will have only a relatively short period of time to win back Brexiteer support if the Tories are to repeat another 2019-style General Election win.

And the next Prime Minister should definitely listen to the views of Tory Councillors when it comes to the way forward on national policy.

As the below graphic from The Telegraph demonstrates, Conservative feeling is clear: the party’s Councillors want immigration slashed, taxes cut, fracking started, Net Zero watered down and the UK out of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Surely the next Conservative PM cannot ignore the fact that 71% of Tory Councillors want immigration numbers reduced, 66% want the ban on fracking ended and 61% support leaving the ECHR?

These may be views that horrify lefty Remainstream media types, but I believe are the type of policies that would attract mass public support and put the Conservatives back on track to win another majority.

Out Of ECHR

With over 15,000 people having come across illegally on small boats from France this year after 28,000 made it across last year, talk of the Rwanda policy maybe, possibly, one day happening simply isn’t good enough.

To tackle illegal migration it is blatantly obvious that the UK must leave the ECHR. As Suella Braverman set out during her leadership campaign:

"As Attorney General I've seen first hand the problems the ECHR has caused us.

"Obstructing lawful, politically legitimate deportations by going to the ECHR destroys trust in politics. And does nothing for public safety, or the wellbeing of the victims of people smugglers.”

More Brits overall now support completing Brexit and leaving the ECHR than support remaining.

Suella Braverman is now one of the top three most popular choices for a Cabinet role with Tory members. She should be promoted and tasked with delivering the UK’s exit from ECHR so that the British Government can get on and stop the illegal migration disaster instead of spending months talking about policies that never happen.

Tens Of Thousands

When it comes to legal migration, it wasn’t that long ago that a Conservative Prime Minister was keen to slash levels down to the tens of thousands net per year. This is what David Cameron had to say in 2015:

"It was a commitment I made which I want to keep. I believe we would be a better, stronger country if we had net migration in the tens of thousands rather than the hundreds of thousands.

"That is what I wanted to achieve. But the figures are very clear I have not achieved that, I want to keep going until we do achieve it because I believe it is the right thing for our country.

"Back in the 1980s when we had an open economy we had migration in the tens of thousands and immigration ceased to be for many years a political issue in our country.

"I think the British public are intensely reasonable about this issue. They recognise immigration is good for the UK but they feel it hasn't been controlled properly. I want to achieve that pledge because it would be good for our country.”

That was and remains a perfectly reasonable and sensible position. It is therefore astonishing that post-Brexit with EU open borders binned, the Tory Government have refused to slash levels of legal migration.

According to the official figures, England’s population rocketed up by almost 3.5 million in just ten years (2011-2021). Net migration accounted for 57% of that surge.

The idea that such an astonishingly fast surge in population growth, fuelled by mass migration each year, doesn't have an impact when it comes to the demand for housing or pressure on local services is laughable.

As the BBC illustrated in their debate with Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, many in the media are quite happy to completely ignore the issue.

But the next Conservative Leader should listen to their grassroot supporters (and the country) on this and finally deliver a reduction of net migration down to the tens of thousands as David Cameron pledged.

Energy Independence

Speaking of Conservative PMs, here is what the current one wrote about fracking for The Telegraph back in 2010 in an article entitled: ‘Ignore the doom merchants, Britain should get fracking’.

In 2008 the cost of natural gas in the US was $8 a unit. It is now $3 a unit. In China it is still up at $12 a unit – and the result is that the US is now competitive in industries such as fertilisers and chemicals that American politicians had long since assumed were lost to low-cost economies of the East. As a result of the use of gas, the Americans have cut their CO2 emissions to levels not seen since the Nineties, in spite of a growing population.

That is what Boris Johnson pointed out back in 2010, followed by hints of a British shale gas revolution in recent months that have amounted to nothing so far. A familiar story of good intentions and policy chit chat that doesn’t produce action.

Whilst Brits of course want to look after the environment, trashing our own industries and hiking up energy prices even further in the name of the green agenda is complete madness.

Energy independence must be the future and that involves using every tool at our disposal which should clearly include fracking.

Two-thirds of Tory Councillors want the fracking ban overturned whilst more support a delaying or relaxing of Net Zero than oppose.

Polling back in March by Savanta ComRes for Net Zero Watch found a majority of Conservative voters in favour of ending the fracking ban.

When it comes to energy policy overall, the British public understandably want to see affordability to consumers prioritised over all else, including the Net Zero target.

The country needs a pragmatic policy that supports British jobs, cuts bills and delivers energy security.

Time Is Short

The incoming Conservative Leader will need to hit the ground running and deliver. If they hesitate, waste time or fail to implement this range of policy shifts - that clearly have huge support from grassroots Conservative supporters - then we are heading for a Labour-LibDem-SNP Coalition Government.

Liz Truss has come across to me as the candidate more likely to get on and deliver policy change rather than platitude - but she won’t have long.

The Fixed Term Parliaments Act is no more so the next PM will be able to decide when the next election is, within a timeframe of around two years or so at most. There is a lot to be getting on with, including on many other issues I’ll be dissecting in future editions of the Brexiteer Bulletin.

The winning coalition of Brexiteer voters that delivered Boris Johnson’s party that historic 2019 victory can be put back together again.

But not with more of the same, endless talking shops or reviews. The next PM will need to deliver on policy. And they should deliver the changes overwhelmingly backed by elected local Conservatives.