Jack Barwell is Campaign Manager for Honiton and Sidmouth Conservative Association.
Earlier this year, I wrote for Conservative Home about urgent need to tackle the widening disconnect between the Conservative grassroots and the party establishment, which was one of many factors that hurt our election campaign back in July.
Since then, what has changed? Not enough – and it’s costing us.
This May’s local elections made clear that the warnings from last summer were not heeded. We’ve gone backwards, not forwards. The party hierarchy in Westminster continues to believe that slow, cautious policy refinement is enough to win back the country. But on the doorstep, in village halls, on high streets, and in local pubs, the message is unmistakable: the pace of change has not been fast enough, the message not strong enough, and the vision not bold enough.
Too much of our platform still looks and sounds like the last Conservative government – a government that, rightly or wrongly, left many voters disillusioned. Unless we present a clean break and a new direction – unapologetically Conservative, clearly different, and viscerally aligned with public priorities – we will not win back trust.
I know this first-hand in the recent elections we’ve just had, where we lost council seats where I was the campaign manager, not because of an increase in vote for the Liberal Democrats, their vote actually slipped a couple of points, but because traditional Conservative voters abandoned us for Reform. And that was despite my campaign strategy of trying to appeal to these Reform voters, which led to the second-lowest Reform vote share anywhere in Devon. That tells me many of the issues with these voters are not local, but it is national, and the party needs to step up unless we want to slip to third place at the next general election.
We must act now. That means a fundamental change in four key areas:
- Immigration: Leave the ECHR
We cannot enforce our own borders while still held hostage by foreign courts. The European Convention on Human Rights is an outdated, unworkable document. The public knows it. We must leave it and retake control.
- Net Zero: Stop Punishing Ordinary People
The green agenda has become a backdoor for higher taxes and tighter controls. From forced EV targets to boiler mandates and attacks on farmers, people have had enough. Cut the climate taxes. Support our countryside. Let people live.
- The Economy: Make Work and Enterprise Pay Again
Young workers deserve lower taxes. First-time buyers need real help – not more schemes, but cuts to stamp duty and the barriers that make homeownership impossible. And family farms and businesses – the backbone of rural Britain – must be freed from crippling taxes.
- British Values: Be Proud of Our Country Again
We must take on the real issues people care about. Stop foreign nationals skipping the queue for housing. Launch national and local grooming gang inquiries. Be unashamed about saying some people should not be in this country if they reject our values and break our laws.
But this election wasn’t just about policy. It was also about the future of the Conservative Party itself – how it looks, who it speaks for, and whether it even feels like it has a future.
I saw this firsthand when I was out on the streets in Honiton and Sidmouth. We built the biggest polling day and week of poll operation Devon has seen in years with over 40 people out pounding the streets and the most amazing thing of all, when our party’s average voter age now is 63, is that the majority of these people were my age or younger and I’m only 22 years old. Voters might not have loved our party nationally or locally at this election, but they certainly enjoyed seeing our new energetic campaign team out, and as a proud conservative, we’re not laying our weapons down now, we’re going to continue this fight.
Along the way I met voters out of love with the party but impressed by my style and the younger team working hard locally.
In Harcombe, I met a former Conservative voter who had gone to Reform in July and stayed there this May. But after watching a video I did – nothing flashy, just me walking through a rural village talking about Labour’s family farm tax while standing by some cows – he said I was “the most common-sense person he’d heard in years.” That was all it took: a fresh voice saying what people are thinking, in a relatable, rural setting.
In Sidford, a voter who had supported us in July but went Reform this time told me they could see themselves backing someone like me in future – not because of flashy promises, but because I was “young, dynamic, and energetic.” The subtext was clear: the Party doesn’t look or sound like that enough anymore.
And then in a local pub in Kilmington, the owner told me he’d been on the fence but ended up voting Conservative again – because he thought I “sounded like someone who knew what it took to be elected.” That’s what hope sounds like to people: realism, clarity, and common sense.
What those conversations show is this: policy matters, but people matter too. This election wasn’t just about council seats – it was about who looks like the future of the Conservative Party.
If we don’t elevate young, dynamic, proudly Conservative voices, we will not survive. Voters are desperate for something that feels like hope again. And when all they see is more of the same – middle-aged caution, tired language, no vision – they switch off.
That’s why the Party must invest in youth.
Not just as volunteers, but as leaders. We need young campaign teams put into real leadership positions in Associations. We need to select young Conservative candidates who are unapologetically right-wing, articulate, and in touch with modern Britain. We need them in council seats, on management committees, and in the next wave of parliamentary selections.
We can still win this. But only if we start acting – and looking – like the party of Britain’s future.
