One of Rishi Sunak’s most influential critics has admitted that had the party listened to the then prime minister, it could have avoided the calamitous defeat it suffered at the general election.
Ben Houchen, the mayor of Teesside and the only leading Tory left in power, insists that his party “absolutely can win in five years” but warns that the Conservatives should not try to become a version of Reform UK in an attempt to achieve this.
Lord Houchen, who has yet to come out publicly in support of any of the leadership contenders, spoke exclusively to The Independent ahead of the party’s conference this week in Birmingham, and after an election at which the Tories returned a historically low 121 MPs.
Having backed Boris Johnson to return as prime minister when Liz Truss resigned, and then disowned Mr Sunak before the local and regional elections in May – not even wearing a blue rosette when his result was announced – Lord Houchen now believes that the former prime minister’s analysis was right, but that “people had stopped listening”.
He warned that while Labour is struggling with questions about freebies, the influence of wealthy donors like Waheed Alli, and anger over the new government’s policies – particularly that of cancelling winter fuel payments for 10 million pensioners – the Tories “still have a long, hard road to recovery”.
He said his party had only itself to blame for a situation in which, he claimed, the main objective of voters was not to elect a Labour government, but to kick the Tories out.
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