The Tories must end this reckless experiment or face electoral disaster

When I was 17, I did something deeply subversive. Shortly after the 1997 election – when Labour had routed the Tories so comprehensively that Tony Blair worried he had “done something unconstitutional” – I knocked on the door of No 36, High Street, Sutton Coldfield, and asked to join the Conservative Party.

A lovely man named Martyn Punyer welcomed me in. He was the party agent, and he wore a look of startled enthusiasm. Not many had joined the Tories that year, and I sensed I might have been the youngest to sign up for some time. For the Conservatives were badly broken. They had lost their reputation for economic competence, were mired in impropriety and sleaze, and had been reduced to a rump of MPs, many of whom had little idea of what life for ordinary people was like.

Defeated parties recently turfed out of government rarely bounce straight back, and so it proved in the 2000s. The Tories found no comfort or solace in opposition. Leaders tried to change but retreated into core vote strategies. The party flirted with ideology, proposing unpopular policies that would part-fund those opting out of public services. Suffering a string of defeats, it had to look on as Labour vandalised the constitution, opened the borders, signed away sovereignty, joined disastrous foreign wars, sacrificed yet more of our manufacturing industries, and, eventually, left the economy in ruins.

This is more than just history. It is a warning to the Conservative Party today, which finds itself in a terrible mess. Following the disastrous start to Liz Truss’s premiership, and in particular the disastrous and unnecessary mini-Budget, Tory MPs have started to compare the next election to 1997. And they have good reason to do so: poll after poll shows Labour leads of 20 and even 30 percentage points. According to one, more voters under the age of 50 say they would vote Green than Tory. MPs representing constituencies that have always returned Tories worry about their chances of re-election.

Nobody doubts that these are difficult times. There is a war in Europe, and an energy crisis. The world is still suffering the after-effects of lockdowns and Covid restrictions. There is inflation and – after years of super-low interest rates and quantitative easing – tightening monetary policy.

Yet all this makes what the Government has done even more reckless. Remember, there was no reason whatsoever to announce a new Budget on September 23. But drunk on their own ideology, egged on by their libertarian think-tank cheerleaders, and unwilling to listen to anybody casting a doubt on their plans, the Prime Minister and Chancellor turned their radical talk into radical action – and in doing so unleashed a terrible financial, economic and political crisis.

Unbelievable as it may sound about the party of sound money and prudent economic stewardship, even now the Government lacks a fiscal plan. On top of the energy bailout that had already been announced, Kwasi Kwarteng cancelled scheduled tax rises he had inherited from Rishi Sunak, cut the basic rate of income tax and abolished the top rate altogether – leaving an enormous black hole in the public finances.

At the time of the Budget Kwarteng simply announced he would let government borrowing increase. But since the market reaction – with gilt yields rising and the slide in sterling stopping only when the Bank of England suggested steep interest rate rises were on their way – he has changed course. The top rate of tax will remain after all. Spending cuts are on their way. There will be further details about the Government’s growth plan. And there will be a fiscal rule that says debt as a percentage of GDP should fall in the medium term.

Thanks to the mini-Budget, interest rates will now rise further and faster than we would have otherwise expected. Government borrowing costs are increasing. Public services and in-work benefits will be cut. These are all serious consequences for the lives of ordinary people. And, worse, the panicky new plan might not work anyway: Tory MPs will not vote for controversial cuts and supply-side reforms. The tax cuts will not stimulate growth. And the fiscal rule on its own is weak, and risks encouraging decisions that are bad for growth, like cuts to capital investment.

Conservatives are not supposed to be reckless, but then this is not really a conservative government. Conservatives eschew ideology, but those at the top of the Government are ideological. They are libertarians. This explains the desperation to cut taxes, in particular those paid by the rich, without bothering with anything as boring as an accompanying fiscal policy. It explains the miserable new immigration policy, which is designed to allow even greater numbers to come to Britain, regardless of what it means for our culture, infrastructure or labour markets. It explains why No 10 has ruled out a public awareness campaign to help households to reduce their energy costs.

Ms Truss says her ideology is about freedom. “I’ve never liked being told what to do,” she says. “And I don’t like to see other people being told what to do.” But this reductive belief is far removed from real conservatism, a rich and sophisticated body of thought that encompasses identity and belonging, community and commitment, market economics, prudence, national resilience and good government. In just a matter of weeks, libertarian thinking has brought the Conservative Party to the edge of disaster – and the country to economic pain and insecurity.

And so Tory MPs now face the dilemma about what to do with a leader less than a third of them supported. It would be ridiculous, many say, to depose Truss quite so quickly. But no more ridiculous, many counter, than watching her lead the party to a landslide defeat and a lost decade in opposition. The Government has created a fiscal hole it cannot fill, lost the confidence of the markets, and repelled millions of voters with the values it has shown. Whether it is by removing her or constraining her, Tory MPs need to save their party, and the country, from the libertarian ideology emanating from Downing Street.