Adam Tugwell

Nobody should be in any doubt that Theresa May had to go. There is also little doubt that Boris – for reasons way beyond his character alone – was and is probably still the only candidate available who could facilitate a way out this political and potentially constitutional mess.

The problem is, that in his finest hour, Boris is displaying nothing fine in terms of a soon-to-be PM at all.

And it’s not like he isn’t being given the chance.

Some of us have been concerned by what looks like Boris’ regressive steps on policy to buy off Conservative MP support for many weeks.

But with the stage now reached where Conservative MPs (other than Hunt) are absolutely no further risk to his bid, he is not doing anything to say, reassure or at the very least demonstrate that he is ready to leave stupidity like ‘One Nation Conservatism’, the old politics that has now been rejected, or indeed the worst parts in May’s tenure and her management of the Brexit process behind.

We hear of the multifaceted anachronism that is ‘One Nation Conservatism’ seemingly at every turn.

Yet the People don’t want to hear about Conservatives working just for one – i.e. themselves – anymore.

We’ve been there. We’ve done that. It’s why we are in the mess that we are now in.

Then there’s this spurious idea that May’s Withdrawal Agreement, that the EU has always rigidly told us couldn’t be unpicked, can now be unpicked. Does anyone really need to say anymore?

The only way that Brexit can be solved and the doors to opportunity opened as they should be, is to ditch the whole ridiculous waste of time that was May’s travesty of a deal, go back to the People with a new Manifesto, and if necessary a formal Electoral Pact with the Brexit Party – as any true conservative leader putting the Country above self and Party surely now would not only realise, but accept and be prepared to communicate that they have to.

Yet the biggest flaw to have now become so rawly exposed, is Boris unwillingness to come clean about what most people living in the real world would have written off as a simple domestic argument.

The politics involved didn’t actually matter, because in the age of social media it’s sadly what we have become used to.

No. It’s the lack of honesty or openness and willingness to show a human side that has now left this would-be Prime Minister so perilously exposed to an ongoing trial by media that endangers not only his premiership before it begins, but also the whole Brexit cause.

Neither Hunt nor Boris could become what we might visualise as being the perfect PM.

Hunt, because he is an ardent Remainer, who like May before him will do the minimum he perceives possible to take what he believes to be some kind of middle road, keeping us fully committed to the EU, whilst crafting some kind of fix and covering message designed to lay the foundations of the argument that the Referendum Result has been honoured, but is strangely then acceptable to all involved.

Boris, because his talents and abilities were better suited to 3 years ago, when May hadn’t already set up her predecessor to fail by walking away from the table, leaving the legacy of a brexit-age dead mans hand that will only be escapable if she is replaced by a player who can rise to the very significant needs of the occasion.

Make no mistake that the situation the next Prime Minister is about to inherit will require the capability to provide not just history-making leadership, but vision, understanding, drive and a level of selflessness – unrecognisable in todays politics – that will make their tenure a worth a whole lot more.

Yet being ‘all that’ doesn’t have to be about the person, the character, the man who will be the next Prime Minister alone.

It is the actions that the next Prime Minister will take and the people they surround themselves with who advise them, that will contribute to what history will see as their own specific legacy and no more.

If neither Boris nor Hunt can face up to the reality of the situation that awaits them, the fact is that their time as Prime Minister is already a lost cause and it will be remarkably short.

Brexit will be the legacy by which they could easily become the third Prime Minister crushed by Brexit, instantly recognisable for nothing more.

To succeed, they MUST work with that very dark hand that they have been given, and accept that the leadership they will have to demonstrate is immediately about coalition, not only with Nigel Farage and the Brexit Party, but with the People and the Electorate itself. They MUST employ a vision and robustness which will look out for the interests not only for those who Voted Leave, but also for those that Voted Remain.

The alternative to doing so is simple and the direction of travel will not be a choice which either of them will have.

If they fail to recognise the direction that they sill soon have to take, we will either all suffer at the hands of a Marxist Government that wants to crush everything that encourages success and individuality for anyone and everyone. Or we will be thrust back into the hands of the EU on punitive – not just surrender terms – that will very quickly demonstrate what bad choices the Conservative Party and a series of Prime Ministers have consistently made.

image thanks to wikipedia

With the timeline the applicants for the post of Prime Minister have had, you would be forgiven for concluding they are all applying for a job. Especially as the promises they are making are of the kind that only those who have had no experience of working within the organisation they are about to join would dare make before they have actually seen inside.

The problem with this scenario is of course that the applicants are all well and truly time-served when it comes to the question of whether or not they should know better, and the role of any MP and in particular that of our Prime Minister is a responsibility and should never have become the epitome of a career coming together in the way that no less than ten wannabes falling over themselves to get the keys to Downing Street will be.

Promises have so far ranged from tax breaks for higher rate taxpayers to building millions of new homes to raising the rate of the living wage. One can only wonder what is yet to come.

All of this, as it stands, flies in the face of a harsh reality they all face. That the dynamics in Parliament that we have today will not have and will not change just because Theresa May has gone and one of them is then in No.10.

Brexit will not be completed in any meaningful or lasting way before there is a working majority of MPs that support it and the process necessary to get there.

Above all those MPs will have to be ready and committed to supporting the Government to take whatever steps will be necessary to get us there.

This option isn’t available in any way, shape or form as things stand.

Yet there is wishful thinking by the bucketload when it comes to suggesting that a ‘shiney new PM in Downing Street’ will be all it takes to achieve the impossible, when anybody looking at this all with a critical eye and a healthy dose of reality would never even hint that it can be done.

Leaving without a Deal and nothing else changed on 31st October is possible for sure – If this Remain-led Parliament doesn’t get in the way. But it will simply end up with the whole process spinning on a sixpence, going into reverse drive and with the UK going straight back into the EU on utterly dreadful terms the other way.

Leaving with a Deal of any sort and in particular anything based on May’s travesty of an attempt at Brexit is also simply not in play.

That means that the only solution to actually achieve the Brexit that People Voted for in June 2016 – and at a minute to 12 save the Conservative Party from irreparable harm – is to go back to the People, putting unrealistic nostalgia about the Party to one side – and build a Coalition to deliver Brexit of the like that has never been seen before in the UK outside of wartime.

This is the only formula that has any chance of sweeping the obstruction and undemocratic behaviour of self-interested MPs that are incumbent in the current Parliament to one side.

A General Election is now unavoidable if any Leader genuinely wants to delver Brexit in any meaningful way. For the Conservative Party, all alternatives end in a place called doom.

Yes, the option of an Autumn General Election sounds far from attractive to any Prime Ministerial hopeful who will surely have their heart sat on staying in No.10 for a longer period than Theresa May.

But what the next Leader of the Conservative Party wants on a personal or career level really is a moot point.

Yes, this so-called contest might be being played out in the pubic realm like its something very important and has meaning for things to come.

But if the new appointee in Downing Street cannot face up to the reality that responsibilities of being our next Prime Minister are so much greater than the kudos of simply getting the job, the whole exercise just spells a whole lot more trouble for the UK than May really ever was.

It’s a long time since the UK has faced a crisis of the magnitude and kind that it does now.

In some ways, the absence of such problems has allowed complacency to get in the way.

And that complacency has opened to doors to career politics taking over at the cost of genuine public service, real leadership and what MPs should really be prepared not only to do, but to do so automatically when real trouble comes the UK’s way.

What is called for now in the attributes of our next Prime Minister is a level of humility and the ability to work with others that many Conservatives in Parliament clearly do not understand and accept as being the right way.

Regrettably it would appear at present that without exception, all ten of the Leadership Candidates are amongst that number.

The boundaries and restrictions of overvaluing the Conservative Party Brand has to be put to one side. This outdated approach has to be considered subservient to that of regaining control of our out-of-control Parliament, to delivering Brexit and to then restoring Democracy to the UK by focusing on delivery and end results rather than getting tied down by who gets the glory and the method that was taken to actually get us there.

There is simply no option but to accept that the General Election now required MUST be fought on the overriding ticket of who will give the People the Brexit that we Voted for.

To do that, there MUST be a Manifesto in place that brings Politicians together from all sides.

A Manifesto that demonstrates that there is a politics which can and will unite us all.

A Manifesto that will ultimately bridge the Leave vs. Remain divide.

A Manifesto that will facilitate the emergence of a new framework and mechanism for Public Policy that will deliver equitably for everyone. Not just those who have already got a whole lot more in whatever way.

Right now, it doesn’t look like any of this has any chance of happening. That should concern us all when we look ahead to what happens next.

The question that these Candidates need to be asking themselves is, ‘What is more important: Delivering whats best for the UK and doing whatever it takes – no matter how hard it might be to get us there. Or the alternative of putting self-interest, career, Party and keeping or staying in power as long as possible as the only priority?’

Over to you guys. The choice is yours to decide.

I’ve been a lapsed Tory for nearly six years. Like many others, I had been hopeful that with May finally going, the Party would get it’s shit together, react properly to the messages the Public have for many months been giving them. Then deal with Brexit properly and treat it as the door opening opportunity that it actually is, so that we would then at least have an incentive to start heading to the Party that we once called home.

Incredibly, whilst those messages from the Public are not only clear but getting louder all the time, the hustings for the Conservative Leadership campaign are giving us all the wrong answers to the questions that we all have and desperately want to know.

It is becoming regrettably very clear that the mentality at the top of the Conservative Party hasn’t yet changed in any way. That with May gone, this whole charade playing out in public is simply about a return to business as usual and taking for granted that to everyone outside Westminster, a change in Prime Minister is all it will take to solve everything that is wrong.

Many of us have fallen in to the trap of thinking that the country is run by very intelligent people.

But without feeling, understanding, empathy and yes – an ear to listen to the messages telling them that something is very wrong, these pretenders to the Seat once occupied by Churchill and Thatcher might all as well be crazy lunatics. Because that’s what their evolving plans are shouting at us as we look in on them from the outside.

Brexit is of course the most pressing issue that these would-be leaders are using as the benchmark to demonstrate their steel, stamina and resolve.

But like May who has gone into the post-Referendum premiership before them, they have not learned that the days when the message was all they needed to worry about have now gone.

It’s now all about substance, delivery and the action that will be taken over the many problems facing this Country of which Brexit is merely only one that is included, that will be the measure of them.

Imagine them now, in the committee rooms, restaurants and bars of Westminster, romancing their Conservative peers with stories of how will be for them all, once they can tell the Public that Brexit has been completed. That all the problems with Farage et al will simply fade and dissolve.

“The chosen method will be an exit from the EU by the 31st October – no matter the cost. We cannot have a General Election because even Boris could lose his seat. So if we simply shut down Parliament by proroguing it, we can have this whole mess sorted and stitched up within weeks. Simples!”

The problem is that proroguing Parliament tells us all that beneath the big talk about fulfilling the Public instruction for Brexit, the would-be leaders who are planning to pursue it really have no concept of what it is they really need to change.

Shutting down Parliament might well create a process that the Conservatives can tell everyone is a clean Brexit.

But with the same numbers and biases ever present in this very same Parliament that will be there to oversee what happens immediately afterwards, you can bet that with the first sign of issues or difficulties that are certain to follow, the majority of Remainer MPs who will still be present will then have a very large stick to hit the Government with.

They will be immediately equipped with what will easily be portrayed to the Public via a receptive media as legitimate fuel to blow up anything to do with Brexit.

They will push us straight back into the arms and Membership of what will then be a completely different and unrelenting EU.

It will be the Conservative Party that will be blamed for our permanent submission to an EU dictatorship, rather than being the only Party to deliver Brexit – as is even now still  being claimed.

Carrying on with the formula of the old politics which says it’s all about ‘telling the People what they want to hear’, is the surest pathway to end our Democracy. With it the Conservative Party and British Politics will surely explode.

There is something that all of these would-be Prime Ministers need to understand and act upon, if they really want our future to be stewarded forward with conservatism at the core of the leading political side:

May’s tenure and handling of Brexit represents a car crash for both the Conservative Party and the Country as a whole. Public Trust in Politics, Democracy and conservative values have been severely injured and won’t be healed just because we have a change of Prime Minister – no matter what they are told.

The only way that the Conservative Party can come through this mess and be able to stake a claim as a Party of Government for the future is to accept and fully embrace the process required of them for change.

Accept that they cannot push through a No Deal Brexit without the Parliamentary numbers in place to see the action through, and that to achieve this they will have to create and lead a Grand Brexit Coalition, made up with the Brexit Party and any Leave/New Politics Minded MPs who see the future as being about more than tribal politics and want to get fully involved.

Respect the reality that a New manifesto must be created that has as its basis a UK for the future, where the success and failure of everyone is a key to Government responsibility, that policy will be fully considered in terms of consequence and every decision taken will be based on the benefits to everyone – not simply those who are involved.

Embrace the need to then go back to the People and secure a new and endorsing mandate, to push through to the other side of a clean and proper Brexit and begin work on materialising the promise of the opportunities and our destiny that awaits us as the result of embracing A New Politics on the other side.

Without being big enough to rise up to the occasion, this Leadership Contest is only going to deliver more mistrust, dawdling, delay and anger – which is much the same as the legacy of Theresa May.

The MP who should be Leading us as our PM when we reach the Summer, should be the one who understands and accepts that you can try and spin words and terms like One Nation Conservatism as much as you like. But A New Politics is about more than one and We expect real Leadership that focuses on direction and doing things right, rather than paying lip service to it and mitigating all risks, because their biggest motivation is based not on anything positive but their personal fright.

Just like the question we were asked at the Ballot Box in the 2016 European Referendum, there is no halfway house when it comes to Brexit.

Once Brexit is done, the UK will have either Left the EU, or by default we Remain.

The complete mess and destruction of Parliamentary, Constitutional and Democratic processes that we have been watching from outside of the Westminster bubble for the past 3 years has proven that there is no fudge, compromise or middle pathway available.

If Democracy is to be respected, then restored, the only path that the UK can now take is to Leave the EU cleanly.

That means the UK Leaving the EU with No Deal. Without obligation to the EU or to any other Foreign Country. With our Independent and Sovereign Status as a Country fully restored.

Brexit has lifted the lid on everything dark that has been happening in British Politics for a very long time.

It has opened the door and created the circumstances where we can and are ready to step forward and not only Leave the EU. It also allows us to leave the old politics behind.

The junking of the Article 50 Process and the Hung Parliament that Theresa May ushered in has left very few options for a Government still working with the old politics.

This Government has been led by an indecisive and poor leadership team that still prioritises the security of MPs Seats at Westminster, rather than what they should be doing in all of our best interests.

If the Conservatives are to be the Party that delivers Brexit, they will first have to go back to the People and secure a majority of MPs that support Brexit.

That means a General Election this Autumn and before that, a series of steps that might well include an electoral pact with the Brexit Party in order to ensure that the next Government will finally be able to fully respect and secure the outcome of the original People’s Vote.

1. Stop discussions or so-called negotiations with the EU. We have until 31^st October before we have to go back and tell them what we are going to do.
2. Create a new, inclusive and aspirational Manifesto. Involve everyone possible or engage people who can genuinely speak on behalf the many others to build a new platform for policy making that is about the best interests of everyone, so that we feel confident that we are witnessing the birth of A New Politics and we are sure that Government and MPs will now deliver on everything that they are supposed to.
3. Build a Coalition based on delivering Brexit and then doing what’s right for us all Beyond. Be open to working with all Politicians who can demonstrate that they are committed to a ‘No Deal Brexit’ and will support the next Governmnet in any way that is required in order to get everything in place, address challenges responsibily and then keep driving on and through until Brexit has been secured and the work required as the basis for change thereafter has been done.
4. Go to the People and ask them for the Mandate to deliver Brexit properly, so that we can begin to move forward and bridge the divide created by the animosity between Leave and Remain.
5. With the Mandate secure, move clinicly and decisively to deliver a clean Brexit and then begin developing working relationships without obligation to the EU and all Countries across the whole World beyond.

With the options that this Conservative Government has open to it, this pathway is the only one they can follow if they genuinely intend to respect and implement the Brexit Vote.

Yes, there is a lot of risk to the MPs and their Parties involved.

But what they have been doing for the past three years has been all about protecting them, rather than our People, our Businesses and our Communities.

The time has come for the balance to shift and for the old politics to be stopped.