Kemi's Conference Speech

It is time to tell the truth.

The truth about our party.

The truth about our politics.

The truth about our future.

For too long politicians have been scared of the truth.

For too long politicians have hidden behind spin.

For too long politicians have told the public what they wanted to hear and then done their own thing.

Well, I say enough.

It’s time to remember who we are, what we stand for and what we want our country to be.

Seven years ago, I stood on this stage so proud to be a Conservative Member of parliament.

We had just lost our majority. But our party was still in government and that was all that mattered.

But, I am no longer a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed backbencher. I am a veteran of four Government departments and a former Cabinet Minister.

I have seen the system from the inside.

Ladies and Gentlemen the system is broken.

It is not enough just to be in Government because you can be in Government and not have power. 

Without a plan to fix the system you end up just announcing policies, doing media and waiting for something to happen.

And then you run into trouble as this Labour government are quickly finding out.

For us it led to a reckoning, a historic defeat worse than 1997.

A defeat that could extinguish the Conservative Party.

We have to get this right.

We have to renew and then we can regain the trust of the British people.

Otherwise the left will get more time to ruin our country.

They’ve started quickly haven’t they?

I actually thought it would take them longer to fall apart. 

It’s clear this Labour Government will leave a mess behind.

We will not manage that decline. 

The Conservative Party does not manage decline. 

The Conservative Party reverses decline!!

Our Country needs us.

We must not let it down.

For this to work we need to go back to first principles. 

Why are we Conservatives?

So much of what made me a Conservative came from my parents.

My late father was full of wisdom.

He used to say: never take your spouse for granted.

And never run for fun. Cos you'll get bad knees.

But he also taught me responsibility. 

He would say 80% of what happens to you is down to you.

He was right.

And as a GP he taught me how to solve problems.

He would say: if you get the diagnosis wrong, the treatment won’t work.

I miss my dad. He taught me the most important lesson of all: never be afraid to do the right thing no matter what people say about you.

Just do the right thing.

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My father taught me not to be afraid. 

I was born here.But I grew up in a place where fear was everywhere. 

You cannot understand it unless you've lived it. Triple checking that all the doors and windows are locked.

Waking up in the night at every sound.

Listening as you hear your neighbours scream as they are being burgled and beaten and wondering if your home will be next. 

When you've experienced that kind of fear you're not worried about being attacked on Twitter.

You appreciate how rare and precious it is to live in a country with security, democracy, equality under the law, and above all else freedom.

Free speech, free enterprise, free markets.

Conservative freedoms, Conservative principles.

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I am not a Conservative because I studied politics at university.

I’m an engineer.

I am not a Conservative because my family always voted Conservative. 

I am a Conservative because I have seen what happens when a country loses sight of those principles.

That must not happen here.

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But if Conservative principles are so great then why aren't we in government anymore?

The truth is we lost faith.  

And stopped acting like Conservatives.  

We stopped being leaders and became managers.

We spoke right and governed left.

And when we went after Labour votes we lost our own.

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There is no greater example than Net Zero.

We set a target with no plan on how to meet it.

Just so politicians could say we were the first country to do so!

Now we have a Net Zero strategy addicted to state subsidy.

Making energy more expensive and hurting our economy.

I am not a climate-change sceptic. 

But I am a Net Zero sceptic.

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I did not become an MP to deliver an agenda set by Ed Miliband.

Promises must come with a plan.

Plans must be based on principles.

That is the Conservative way.

But in Government we did not always keep our promises. 

We promised to lower taxes. They went up. We promised to lower immigration. It went up.

Why?

Because the Treasury said high immigration was good for the economy. But we knew it was not good for our country.

And we did not always defend our values.

We did not defend Capitalism.

Capitalism does not mean corporatism. 

It does not mean monopolies. 

It means free markets and competition.

We didn’t always protect those principles.

Like Labour we raised taxes on business: Corporation Tax, Capital Gains Tax.

We taxed dividends and we regulated like Labour.

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So instead of encouraging people to start and grow a business it got harder and harder.

Economics is not just some technical exercise.

It’s about people their hopes and their aspirations.

It's how we help the poorest in society.

In the 80s our party gave this country a golden age of wealth creation.

Where is that now?

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Look at the hypocrisy of Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves who target savers and wealth creators while taking money from a millionaire.

The Conservatives have to be the party of wealth creation.

Wealth is not a dirty word.

It supports jobs and families.

It pays for our schools and our health service.

We should defend it and encourage it.

We need to stop being afraid of defending our beliefs.

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Those beliefs are needed now more than ever.

Because a new political force has risen.

Something I have been fighting all my political career: identity politics.

Like the 1970s we face a battle of ideas against the left and its desire for ever greater social and economic control.

It is Socialism returned. Socialism in a suit. The British public knows thatsocialism doesn’t work. 

But if you give it a new label you can sneak it in.

You can promote class-warfare under the banner of equality.

You can take freedom and choice away from families by telling them that Ofsted inspection reports are unfair.

If you call “communism” Environmentalism you can close down businesses, block the roads, and stop people going to work.

This new politics has made us afraid to defend the people who need us. 

Like Young Conservatives.

They tell me they are afraid to share their politics with other students because they’ll be attacked that they are marked down by lecturers because of their beliefs.

We have let Young Conservatives down.

We need to defend them, champion them and give them a party they can be proud of.

But other people need us too.

Like Women. For too long government stayed silent as women were sacked for saying that a man cannot be a woman.

I fought for them while Labour called them bigots.

It wasn’t until the SNP put a sex offender in a women’s prison that they understood the fight I was leading.

We won that battle. Nicola Sturgeon has gone.

And Labour now accept our argument.

We are Conservatives elected to Conserve what is great about our Country.

We cannot sit by as the left denigrate our history and pull down our monuments.

We must not be afraid as we were in Batley to get involved where a teacher was driven into hiding by Islamist thugs.

Or when the very worst crimes were committed when young girls were groomed and raped for years in Rotherham and Rochdale and nothing happened because those in charge were scared of being called racists.

And then the system hid behind the Human Rights Act and failed to deport the child abusers and allowed them to walk the streets where their victims live.

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Well enough. I am not afraid. 

This stealthy poisoning of our society needs to stop.

And let's face it the Liberal Democrats are not going to defend our country.

Unlike the left we know right from wrong.

But we allowed ourselves to be bound by aggressive identity politics, by a Treasury whose rules were written by Gordon Brown, and a legal system re-engineered byTony Blair.

You may think Blair and Brown were defeated in 2010.

But the truth is the Left never left.

It’s time to make a change.

Ministers need to be able to make decisions that aren’t endlessly challenged in the courts.

If people don’t like those decisions there are elections.

If the law says the Government can’t deport a foreign child abuser then the law is an ass.

And it’s time for politicians to change it.

And when the Government relies on economic modelling which doesn’t grasp the realities of immigration we know it's time to make a change.

So here is what we are going to do.

We are going to rewrite the rules of the game.

If I become Leader we will immediately begin a once in a generation undertaking.

The sort of project not attempted since the days of Keith Joseph in the 1970s.

A comprehensive plan to reprogramme the British state.

To reboot the British economy.

A new blueprint for the great machine of our Country.

One that goes far beyond our relationship with the EU or the ECHR.

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A plan that considers every aspect of what the state does and why it does it.

A plan built on the principles and priorities of our Nation.

A plan that looks at our international agreements. At the Human Rights Act. The Equality Act at Judicial review and judicial activism. At the Treasury and the Bank of England. At devolution and Quangos. At the Civil Service and the Health Service.

At how we use power to give power to the British people.  

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We will rewire, reboot, and reprogramme.

Nothing is more exciting to me. I am an engineer. And engineers do not hide from the truth.

This cannot be the work of just one Woman.

It has to be the work of a huge team.

A team that goes way beyond Westminster.

Our party is not a club or a clique.

We’re not just the ERG, the TRG or OneNation.

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We are one Conservative Party.

We are a movement. A Conservative movement.

I will always defend that cause.

Some people say I like a fight.

I can’t imagine where they got that idea. But it’s not true. I do not like to fight. But I’m not afraid to fight.

I don’t fight for the sake of fighting. But I do fight for you.

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Every day of the last parliament I fought for Conservative values.

I fought for them even when I was told it wasn't in my interest.

I fought for women's rights to safe spaces and children's rights to grow up in their own time.

I fought against those who seek to divide our country based on race.

I fought for the future of my 3 children and for your children.

I will always fight against left-wing nonsense.

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I am sad to be in opposition.

But there’s a part of me that’s excited.

Because Opposition is an opportunity.

An opportunity to make Angie uncomfortable, to make Rachel wriggle, and make Starmer sweat. We are going to have fun.  

They thought that all they had to do was get us out.

But they don’t have a plan. They are not up to the job. They will let our country down.

And we must be ready to replace them.

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My campaign is not about me. It’s about all of us.

It’s called Renewal 2030 because we have to renew and 2030 is likely the first full year we’ll have in government.

We have it in our power to make the 2030s a golden decade. A time of renewal and growth.

Not just growth in GDP or GDP per capita.

But growth that most people can feel.

Growth in our party and our Country. An age that will leave a meaningful legacy for the British People for decades to come.

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A renewal based on: personal responsibility, family, sovereignty and Capitalism.

As Trade Secretary I saw it the world over. Capitalism, trade and enterprise reduce poverty. Socialism creates poverty.

Government prides itself on growing the economy.

But Government does not create growth.

Business creates growth. Government needs to get out of the way.

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Any Government that forgets that will start to think it knows better than business.

It will allow Ed Miliband to build things like a ‘Great British Energy Company’.

Well I've had a look at it. It doesn’t produce energy. It’s not a company. And there’s nothing great about it.

Government needs to be the servant of the market, not its master.

It needs to protect fair play and proper competition.

But the wealth of the country comes from the people who work in it.

Not the people who live off it.

It comes from the businesses built by the brilliance of those who put in the time and take the risks.

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We will help them to shoot for the stars.

We will help a new generation to build families and homes, to build careers and businesses, acquire capital, property, investments and security.

We will take the shackles off the economy so that it can fly and take the country with it. 

After we have unpicked the damage done by this Labour Government my vision for beyond 2030 is this: for Britain to be a country where people can find a shared identity.

Four nations but one United Kingdom. 

A country where being a British citizen means move than just having a British Passport.

A country where people can be committed to each other irrespective of their religion or what they look like.

A Britain that is friends with its neighbours but will always proudly protect its National Interests!

A Britain at ease with itself.

A Britain that believes in itself.

And that sort of Britain can only come about because of Renewed Conservative Principles.

And the time to start that Renewal is right now.

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