For this week’s Conservative conference edition of the New Statesman, I interviewed Greg Barker, Conservative MP for Bexhill and Battle, former climate change minister (he accompanied David Cameron to the Arctic Circle in 2006) and ultra-moderniser. You can read the piece in full here, but here are some of the highlights.
Tories must not “dance off to right” and must “relentlessly” pursue modernisation
Confronted by the threat of Ukip, Barker warned that the Tories must occupy “the centre ground of British politics, rather than dancing off to the right” and that they must “relentlessy” pursue modernisation.
He told me: “I worry that there are people who would like to drop the modernisation agenda and that want to take us closer to a Ukip set of policies. But I think you have to be relentlessly pursuing and making the case of why we should be forward looking, not backward looking, of why the future of the Conservative Party as an election-winning machine, as well as in terms of the best for the electorate, depends on us occupying the centre ground of British politics, rather than dancing off to the right
“However real the immediate threat may be from Ukip, what voters respect in the long-term is authenticity in their political parties and I think we are authentically centre-right, best at offering a future which is driven by an optimistic outlook on the UK’s potential, rather than trying to drag us back to the 1950s.”
Of Douglas Carswell’s defection, he said: “I thought it was treacherous. If he’s happier in Ukip, well that’s the best place for him.”
Lib Dem Ed Davey is “a bit right-wing for me”
Declaring himself to be “unashamedly pro-alition”, Barker told me that the partnership with the Lib Dems had been “a remarkable success”.
He said that he had had “a very good relationship” with Energy Secretary Ed Davey, adding in a remark that will do the Lib Dem no favours: he is “a bit right-wing for me”. “He’s rather laissez-faire. I would favour slightly more radical market interventions. The same is probably true of Chris Huhne [Davey’s predecessor as energy secretary].”
Tories “musn’t obsess about Europe”
In response to calls from some Tory MPs for David Cameron to declare his willingess to campaign for EU withdrawal, Barker told me that the party “musn’t obsess about Europe” and urged recalcitrant backbenchers to “rally round David, stop obsessing about every dot and comma in our negotiating position and actually give him the space and time to get the deal for Britain”.
He added: “I am not one of those politicians who lies awake in the middle of the night worrying about Brussels. The way that David Cameron has handled Europe is superlative. For a Tory prime minister to try and navigate between the Scylla and Charybdis of different wings on the Tory Party on this a very, very difficult task, and I think he’s done it extraordinarily well. Now, it needs people to bite their lips, give him space, get behind him, and give him that negotiating space.”
Content from our partners
Related
