MANY OF THE soundbites emerging from this year’s Conservative Party Conference, which concludes today, would have been mystifying to even the most engaged political observers only 10 years ago.
Among the top priorities for the modern-day iteration Conservative Party decision-makers are 15-minute cities, wokeness, scrapping meat taxes that never existed, and what they call “gender ideology”.
A Twitter graphic, shared yesterday by the official Conservative Party account, touted the party’s promise to “kick woke ideology out of science”. Even in 2023, it’s possible that many voters will have no idea what is substantively meant by such a claim.
A speech by Secretary of State for Science Michelle Donelan made it clear that the rights and status of transgender people were at the heart of this declaration, claiming that “scientists are told by university bureaucrats that they cannot ask research questions about biological sex”.
Donelan told the crowd that science in the UK was being undermined by the “slow creep of wokeism,” echoing Health Secretary Steve Barclay’s plan to ban trans women from female health wards within the NHS.
The speech has caused consternation with Barclay’s fellow Tory MP Jamie Wallis, the first openly trans MP, who urged Barclay to focus on solving problems “which actually exist”.
Nevertheless, ultra-conservative talking points have been a common feature throughout the four-day conference, which comes a fortnight after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced a U-turn on the UK’s climate targets.
One of the most eye-catching and eyebrow-raining speeches of the conference so far was made by Home Secretary Suella Braverman. In a wide-ranging speech, Braverman, who is of Mauritian, Kenyan and Indian descent, said: “The wind of change that carried my own parents across the globe in the 20th century was a mere gust compared to the hurricane that is coming.”
Former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn compared Braverman’s choice of language to that of Enoch Powell, a Tory who once gave a speech comparing Commonwealth immigration to the UK to “the River Tiber flowing with much blood”.
In an apparent reference to the Black Lives Matter movement, Braverman said UK voters must decide at the next election “if they want to curb woke with Rishi Sunak, or let it run riot with Kier ‘take-the-knee’ Starmer.” In one of the strangest moments of the conference Andrew Boff, chair of the Conservative Party London Assembly, was escorted from the crowd by police during Braverman’s speech for saying “No, this is trash” when Braverman described “gender ideology” as a “poison” in modern Britain.
It is perhaps no surprise, then, that other elements of the conference, such as the LGBTQ+ Networking Brunch, have been relegated to the “Fringe events” schedule, along with “Wind and solar: energy saviours or a blight on our communities?”
Not to be all insane moments in British politics, but here's Suella Braverman standing on a dog pic.twitter.com/fuilOOihFO
— Alexander Brown (@AlexofBrown) October 3, 2023
Braverman’s contribution to the conference did not end with her speech. This morning, she apologised after she was photographed standing on the tail of a guide dog, which is like something Thick Of It creator Armando Ianucci would bin-off for being too on the nose.
Another similarly farcical photo emerging from the Manchester Central Convention Complex shows bottles of Pol Roger champagne, which retails at around €50 per bottle, being brought into the event by the trolley-load.
Secretary of Transport Mark Harper shared Braverman’s fear-inducing bent and promised to crack down on 15-minute city proposals. As discussed in this The Journal FactCheck, the 15-minute city is an urban planning idea designed to “enable people to live more sustainably, reducing the need for private vehicles and a wider reliance on fossil fuels, as well as an improvement in local areas and citizens’ quality of life.”
Harper detailed his own understanding of 15-minute cities as “councils [that] can decide how often you go to the shops, and that they can ration who uses the roads and when”.
Another major call made at the conference is the UK’s government’s decision to ditch the HS2 plan to extend high-speed rail services from Birmingham to Manchester. The UK’s GMB union reacted to the news saying the decision sent “a shockwave through the construction industry and railway supply chain, costing hundreds of jobs.”
While the Conservative Party vehemently opposes the supposed encroachment of 15-minute cities, they are prepared to impose further limits on the legal age for buying cigarettes by one year, each year, meaning that a 14-year-old today will never legally purchase a cigarette in the United Kingdom.
Speaking today, Sunak said: “I know not everyone in this hall will agree with me on this but I have spent a long time weighing up this decision. Simply put, unlike all other legal products, there is no safe level of smoking.”
Such a lucid policy is made all the more notable for its apparent incompatibility with the current Conservative Party, which seems to prioritise other individual liberties such as limiting the power of councils to curb car use.
You know you’re at Conservative conference when the posh French Champagne doesn’t come by the bottle, or the case, but by the trolley-load. pic.twitter.com/kObPtm2Auj
— Peter Walker (@peterwalker99) October 2, 2023
Certain members of the British media have been steadfast in pulling up Tory MPs on some of the narratives advanced in Manchester. BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire challenged Donelan on several claims made during the conference.
“I’m not going to let this go,” Derbyshire said on live television yesterday evening. “There was never a proposal to use seven bins, we can’t find any council that wants to decide how often people can go to shops, and Labour have never proposed taxing meat. They are untruths, they are fictions, they are completely and utterly made up, and it’s really disrespectful to voters.”
Derbyshire was referring to Sunak’s climate U-turn two weeks ago during which he claimed to have scrapped a series of “heavy-handed measures”, such as a tax on meat and flying, compulsory car-sharing and forcing people to recycle in seven different bins — policy proposals that he seemingly invented for the very purpose of shooting down.
Donelan, for her part, ignored this attempt to put forward the truth, simply saying: “If you’ve been at this conference, you’ll know that this is not a party in desperation mode. This is a party in delivery mode.”
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