Ben Houchen questions whether Tories still want to win in Red Wall
Ben Houchen, the most senior elected Tory in the North, has accused the Conservatives of “retreating back into the shires in the South East” under Kemi Badenoch.
The Tees Valley Mayor questioned whether his party still hoped to represent the so-called Red Wall of traditionally Labour seats across Northern England.
In 2019, under Boris Johnson, the Conservatives won 33 of the 63 seats in the post-industrial North, many for the first time, however almost all of these constituencies went red last year.
Speaking at the Conservative Party Conference, in the Politico Pub, Lord Houchen said: “What we've got to do is be able to identify with people again and create that story of what does the Conservative Party stand for now.
“Under Boris Johnson, there was a very strong, lower-middle class, working class group of people who hadn't voted at all before, who came out and voted for a Conservative party that felt like it was for them.
“Are we still for that? Are we still for the Red Wall? Are we still for those people?
“The whole conversation has been retreating back into the shires in the South East.
“I think these are some serious questions that we as a conservative party need to answer first before we can start talking to them.”
Lord Houchen, who defied the political winds to be reelected in 2024, criticised the current Tory leader Kemi Badenoch for a “slow start”.
He said: “It's this kind of reneging against quick headlines and quick announcements that might, in principle, sound good to the public, but actually, do they work in practice?
“Now I get that, but given where we are in politics today, and particularly with the emergence of Reform post election.
“The work that they're doing is slightly side lining the Conservatives.
“I don't think we have the room and we don't have the luxury of being able to take that time.”
However, Lord Houchen pushed back on suggestions that Mr Johnson returning as a leader would push the Tories up in the polls.
When asked who he would prefer as leader, he replied “Kemi, before adding: “The mass increase in migration that we saw, particularly over the last three or four years of the Conservative government, I think those chickens have come home to roost, which has again fed into the Reform bounce.”
Net migration hit record levels under Mr Johnson and his successors Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, despite the UK leaving the European Union.
Shadow Foreign Secretary Dame Priti Patel said she “absolutely” accepts that Conservatives will be attacked over the so-called “Boriswave” of migration.
Mr Johnson’s Home Secretary acknowledged Reform’s “Boriswave” as an attack line, saying: “It is, and I acknowledge that and absolutely accept that.
“So, we have to move forward and do something about that, which is exactly the space our party is in right now.”
Mrs Badenoch claimed that if the Conservatives returned to power, 150,000 people would be deported every year.
However, when asked by the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg where they would go if they could not be returned to their home countries, the Tory leader wouldn’t say, describing this as an “irrelevant question”.