Michael Gove

How the Tories should address Britain’s future

(Credit: Adam Hawksbee, Onward)

Michael Gove gave a speech at the thinktank Onward for the launch of its Future of Conservatism project today. Here is the text of his speech in full:

The essence of Tory modernisation is to be true to the core principle of Conservatism – to deal with the world as it is, not as we might wish it to be. Conservative modernisation means applying enduring Conservative principles to our changing times and adapting policy to an altered world. The problems faced by Margaret Thatcher and Nigel Lawson – and indeed George Osborne and David Cameron – are different from the crises and challenges we face today. Today I want to outline four key challenges that I know the Onward team will wish to rise to.

First, the world economy has changed. The long shadow of the financial crisis, the Covid pandemic and the war in Ukraine have all seen us move beyond the high water mark of globalisation to a time where national resilience and economic security matter more.

Conservatives believe in the human, the organic. The ties that bind

Second, the challenge of inequality has sharpened. The economic gap between our most productive and least productive regions, long a British weakness, was brought into jagged focus with the Brexit referendum. Nations which do not mobilise their entire population to maximise growth are handicapped in the global race; and the nations in which communities are disempowered, economically and politically, fail to provide all citizens with the agency, security and dignity they deserve.

Third, our cultural and social life has become more polarised. The growth in identity politics has encouraged division between those who must check their privilege and those encouraged to nurse their grievance. Between those who organise their lives around acronyms and abstract nouns – such as EDI [or equity, diversity and inclusion] – and those whose concrete experience is rooted in family and community.

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