The Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary said he hopes "we can start to recover"
The Conservative Party could be in a “far worse position” after the next General Election unless changes are made, leadership contender Mel Stride has warned.
The Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary told GB News: “I care about my party and I care about my country, and I think we're in a very perilous situation for the Conservative Party at the moment.
“I would hope, very much hope, under whoever the leader is, that we are now at an inflection point, and we start to recover but there's no guarantee of that at all.
“It's quite possible that we end up in a far worse position even after the next General Election.
“1997 was a very low point, but we didn't have a great balance of Liberal Democrats on our left, and indeed Reform in Parliament, with Members of Parliament.
“There are reasons why one could be very fearful, but I'm optimistic because what I know is that if we can unite the Conservative Party, which one of the reasons why we've fallen back, if we can drive change…then we get back into contention, we can actually win the next General Election.”
Speaking to Michael Portillo, he added: “Look at Labour's position. They've won on the smallest proportion of the popular vote in our history, under 34 per cent, they had the benefit of a lot of tactical voting…that is going to start to unwind.
“We may see that Labour built its fortress as a castle of sand, actually, that we can wash away, but we're going to have to unite to do it. We're going to get the right platform together, which is going to take time.
“It'll take months and years, rather than being done overnight. So all this discussion about policy and whether we should agree to do this is a bit premature, frankly, and we've got to reform the organisation so we're fighting fit.”
Asked if the next leader needs to be charismatic, he said: “A lot of people do know who I am. During the General Election, when it was really tough, I and my colleagues had a simple choice.
“Do we stand up and put our head above the parapet and go out and defend our party to the best of our ability, to save as many seats as we possibly could, or do we go and do something else?
“I did a quarter of the media rounds for the Conservative Party during that run up to the General Election and I did it because I had the courage to do it.
“I had the ability to do it, the communication skills to do it, and I think I was instrumental in helping even in what was admittedly a very difficult situation.”
He added: “I think there's an overarching problem for the party, which is that it has lost sight of what it stands for. Back in the day of Margaret Thatcher, it stood for aspiration and opportunity and achievement, and that has been my story in life.
“…that's what we've lost track of now and part of that is because of what has been done to us in terms of the cost-of-living crisis, in terms of Covid, in terms of having to become a party that spends hundreds of billions of pounds supporting families and businesses up and down the country, rather than being that smaller government, lower tax, higher opportunity, higher aspiration Conservative Party that we now have to deliver.
“I have the plan to do that, and I know how to do that, but it will take time.”
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