Fox says freedom key to Conservative strength
A relentless focus on giving individuals more freedom is the key to ensuring the Conservative Party remains united and a major political force, Liam Fox said yesterday.
In a speech to the Politeia think-tank, the newly appointed Shadow Foreign Secretary said the party should avoid carrying out too many post-mortems on its election performance.
Under party leader Michael Howard, they had run “one of the most professional, focused and disciplined campaigns in recent years”.
Mr Fox said the party’s one failing had been to sell “the product”, not “the brand”: they had convinced people their policy agenda was a good one but not persuaded them to actually vote Conservative.
To build that ‘brand’, the party must draw on its long history of combining different political traditions, as it had done when disparate figures such as Margaret Thatcher, Leon Brittan, Geoffrey Howe and Nigel Lawson worked together in the 1980s.
“The coalition that is the Conservative Party is drawn from different political traditions. The party is at its strongest when it is best able to match these different traditions to the contemporary political landscape,” he said.
Mr Fox said there had been an “over-simplified” debate between so-called modernisers and traditionalists, when what was needed was a balance between the different strands of Conservative tradition.
The concept of freedom was central to that balance, he said.
“Freedom is the key. Never let us underestimate the importance of individuals exercising to the maximum degree possible their personal liberty.”
He went on: “We believe that freedom offers not only the best and brightest hope for all our citizens, but also particular hope for those in our society who have least freedom today.
“So, as Conservatives, we must of course argue passionately for freedom. But we must also explain, clearly and patiently, why. We should never take it for granted that people understand why freedom works. We must explain why it works. And why the converse fails.”
Mr Fox ended by calling for a Conservative Party “whose instincts are economically conservative and socially liberal in tune with the diversity and aspirations of Britain in the twenty-first century”.
