Labour MPs wouldn’t know a working class person if they tripped over one says ESTHER McVEY
In many respects the 2019 General Election result was the culmination of our vision when I co-founded Blue Collar Conservatism with Philip Davies MP and Clark Vasey back in 2013. All three of us were from traditional Labour working class heartlands - Liverpool, Doncaster and Carlisle respectively - and we had all strongly recognised the same two things which led us to form the group.
The first factor we all felt strongly about was that in policy terms the Conservative Party was much closer to the values of working class voters than the Labour Party. Anyone who has knocked on doors for political parties in working class estates will know that they tend to be much tougher on crime and immigration than most other voters and have a strong belief in social mobility and patriotism. In policy terms their natural home was the Conservative Party.
Nevertheless they repeatedly voted Labour at election time, but not because they agreed with what the Labour Party were saying – far from it – but because of a deep (albeit misguided) feeling that the Conservative Party was for the “toffs” and Labour was for the working class.
The second factor that encouraged us to set up Blue Collar Conservatism was that it was increasingly clear the Labour Party were more and more overtly abandoning working class voters.
When we looked across at the Labour benches in Parliament – led by middle class intellectual Ed Miliband at the time – it was obvious to us that the vast majority of Labour MPs wouldn’t recognise a member of the working class if they tripped over them.
They didn’t understand working class values and if they did would have contempt for most of them.
It was clear the Labour Party was no longer a working class party for the working classes, it had become a haven for metropolitan, big city, very left-wing, politically correct, virtue signalling so called intellectuals.
A trend that has since accelerated.
We recognised a unique opportunity for the Conservative Party – to show working class voters that we were on their side and their natural political home.
But even we have been stunned by how quickly that political turnaround has happened.
There is no doubt that Brexit has speeded up the process.
Working class – traditional Labour – voters overwhelmingly voted for Brexit in the EU referendum.
It should not come as a surprise to the Labour Party that after repeatedly telling those voters they were either thick, gullible or racist, there would be a backlash – particularly as they spent much of their time in Parliament seeking to overturn their vote.
But the problem for Labour was much deeper than Brexit – it showed clearly a more general contempt for a group of voters they had been used to taking for granted.
Brexit allowed those voters to look at the Conservative Party with fresh eyes.
We were now the Party standing up for the integrity of the vote of the working classes, against the metropolitan elite in society – big business, the media, academics and Labour MPs – who thought they knew best.
But whilst Brexit – and Jeremy Corbyn – may well have speeded up the process, this trend was happening anyway and would have led to the same outcome.
Take the Sedgefield constituency as a perfect illustration of this, a seat we won from Labour in December.
In 1997, Tony Blair won the seat with a majority of more than 25,000 and with more than 70 percent of the vote.
Yet by 2015 – before Labour were trying to sabotage Brexit and before Jeremy Corbyn had become leader of the Labour Party – the Labour majority in Sedgefield was down to below 7,000.
Blue Collar Conservatism is all about how we now retain those voters who have taken that political journey from Labour to Conservative – for example, ensuring we are tough on crime, strictly control immigration, grow the economy to invest money in our public services, take pride in our country, support the armed forces and spend more of our money on things we desperately need in the UK rather than send it abroad on international aid – but it is much more than just a body to lobby for specific policies which we believe will appeal to working class voters.
Blue Collar Conservatism is about how we do politics and how we engage people in the political process.
We don’t want to make the same mistakes as Labour and tell working class voters what is good for them and expect them to fall into line.
Blue Collar Conservatism is about turning politics on its head, making sure working class voters have the opportunity to tell us what they want to see politicians deliver for them.
That is why – before Covid – we did pub tours around the country, what I called a “pubocracy” where we would invite members of the public to join us in the pub to tell us what their priorities are, rather than us making speeches to them.
And during Covid I have been doing a Blue Collar Conversations podcast where I would ask people on the frontline in many different sectors what help and support they needed.
This Blue Collar Conference builds on that.
This is about hearing from the people who are the salts of the earth of our country, and the people on the front line.
I have always believed that the people who know best about anything are the people at the chalk face.
They see with their own eyes what works and what doesn’t and despair when people in authority make the same mistakes time after time.
The Conservative Party has changed markedly at the last general election.
We now have many more working class Tory MPs rooted in their communities.
People like Lee Anderson, who worked down the coal mines, supported Labour for many years and is now a Conservative MP as he went on the same journey that so many other traditional Labour voters have done.
Blue Collar Conservatism will ensure we never make the same mistake as Labour. We won’t take these working class voters for granted and we won’t treat them with contempt.
Our first ever Blue Collar Conference is part of that bottom up engagement.
Get involved with the discussion by emailing [email protected] or use #bcc20 on social media.
• Esther McVey is Conservative MP for Tatton and the co-founder of the Blue Collar Conservative Movement
