Do the Tories Really Need Tim Stanley?

Ditching Net Zero and leaving the ECHR should be non-negotiables for the Tories. So why should the party contort itself to win over one Cambridge-educated Telegraph columnist?

Writing for the Daily Sceptic this week, Nick Rendell questioned whether the Tories should attempt to accommodate people such as the Telegraph’s Tim Stanley.

It was Stanley, you may recall, who launched an impassioned, if fanciful, defence of Net Zero in the Telegraph’s pages a couple of weeks ago.

Nick Rendell wrote:

Trying to sell ice-creams and political parties has more in common than you might think. Magnum Classic, Almond, White, Mint. Singles and minis. You can get Magnums in multiple flavours and sizes.

If you’re a retailer, the Magnum Ice Cream Company can fill your fridge with their range. Everyone coming into the shop to buy an ice-cream has a choice, but it’s limited to the Magnum range.

The Right needs to emulate this approach. Currently we appear to be offering just the political equivalent of the Magnum Classic: out of the ECHR, out of Net Zero, out of the EU and illegal migrants out of here!

In my social circle we have EU ‘rejoiners’. Others who are first and second generation migrants. Mixed-race friends who instinctively fear overly heavy migration control. There are public sector employees, gays and members of a variety of minority groups. However, they all tend to share a common concern over taxation, growing state authoritarianism and the fear that their children are getting a less good inheritance than they enjoyed. Economically they tend to be either small or large ‘c’ conservatives – let’s not push them away in the pursuit of philosophical purity.

While most of us might settle for the Magnum Classic, we’re not a majority. To win back power we also need those looking for the political equivalent of the Almond, White or Mint flavour on the Right of British politics.

We achieve this by broadening the scope of the debate on the Right, not shutting it down.

He concludes:

Let Ambrose Evans-Pritchard and Tim Stanley promote Net Zero. Let Gavin Barwell advocate for rejoining the EU. Let Boris Johnson defend his Boriswave. Heavens, I’d even accept everyone having to build a third toilet block if it means the trans debate can be framed as essentially a libertarian issue.

We need to turn the tables on the Left. If radical LGBTQ+ extremists can break bread with Islamists, surely we on the Right can find a way to tolerate Tim Stanley?

Debate is all well and good, and political parties perforce need to be broad churches if they are serious about winning elections.