Sir John Major’s Remarks at Conservative Party Lunch – 28 October 2025
The extracts from a speech made by Sir John Major at a Conservative Party lunch on 28 October 2025.
At the moment, our country is drifting. People don’t know where to turn. Our political system is creaking, and anxious people are turning to populist politicians who have no philosophy, no experience of the complexities of Government, and no hope of lifting our four nations back into prosperity.
Unthinking populism has already wrecked our trade with Europe and made us poorer, weaker, and less relevant in the wider world. Do not allow it to take away the decencies and civilities of our country as well.
We, as a Party, are ourselves in part to blame for our present difficulties. There have been too many internal squabbles. Crises have been handled poorly. The electorate believes we have taken them for granted.
At the last election, we had the worst result in our history. Labour won a massive majority but – and it’s a BIG but – with a share of the vote so small it would have lost every other election over the last 100 years.
That said, our own pitiful share of the vote means we must re-think, re-assess, understand what failed, correct it, and begin to re-build.
Let me make this point. Far more is at stake than just the political interests of the Conservative Party. Around the world democracy is retreating, and autocracy is advancing. Our political system is falling into question. We should fear this trend.
Frustration with democracy should not blind us to the toxic nature of nationalism ‒ or any ‒ and every form of populist or authoritarian government.
Polls tell us that many voters, especially the young, seem to favour a “strong man leader”, who will sweep away all problems to produce a shining new world.
It really doesn’t work like that.
Even a brief glimpse at history tells another story, for such figures lead no-one to Utopia: instead, to gain and keep power, they sweep away the compromises and decencies of democracy.
If we wish to continue to enjoy freedom of choice and action we must work with – and for – democracy, and not let apathy bury it. Only democracy will uphold the personal liberties we take for granted in the UK.
What must we do?
To recover, our Party must first answer the question:
“I vote Conservative because ….”. It is vital for the Party to regain a narrative, and a reputation for wishing to serve the people of the United Kingdom, over and above themselves.
We need to engage in a dialogue with the nation. People have a right to know not only what the Conservative Party is doing, but why it is doing it – and what it will mean for their own futures.
We must take people them into our confidence: talk more with them and less at them. We must offer deliverable policy – not spin, or soundbite, or unrealistic policies. Let us leave that to others.
We know the objective. We cannot recover without growth; without public and private investment; without incentive and reward.
If ambition and initiative are crushed, we will sink into long years of slow growth or no growth. That is how democracy falls and autocracy rises.
We need to applaud success and innovation – and not tax it until it collapses, or leaves our high achievers taking their ideas and their money elsewhere.
What do we care about most? I would suggest it is our families, our children and grandchildren. They have had a tough time for two decades ‒ the desertion of the under-35 vote is no surprise.
They have to pay for University education: their parents did not.
They won’t enjoy final salary related pensions. They are done and gone.
Without help from their family, they can’t afford to buy a home of their own.
If they can’t buy, they must rent.
If they rent, they can’t save for a deposit for a house. Schemes to help have come ‒ and gone.
For the first time I can recall, the modern generation will be poorer than their parents ‒ surely the very definition of failure, and one I never thought I would see in our own country.
They are not alone, others have grievances – not least taxpayers and the elderly.
We have all fought many elections. We know a war cannot be won without an Army. Nor can an election be won with only half a Party. Our Party needs to open up its arms to all who share our broad philosophy – not a narrow strand of it.
The Party needs its Right Wing, its Centre, and Centre Left Conservatives back together in the fold. If that can be done, then we may – once again – widen our appeal and be a power in the land. The alternative is bleak.
Let me stress the reality about our modern electorate. The silent majority still exists. Our task is to find them again.
43% of our nation is classed as “Centre” or “Middle Ground”. You cannot ignore them if you wish to govern.
To those who think differently I would ask a question: where have the squabbles, the fratricidal disputes, the bone-headed rejection of tolerance, the hostility and mean-spiritedness of a minority within the Party, the sheer chaos brought about by self-centred ambition to captain the ship got us? Where?
The answer stares at us reproachfully in recent election results and opinion polls. Taken together, they have turned the greatest political warship in the history of our nation into a wreckage of the high ambitions our Party has always been proud to represent. But it need not be so.
The Polls tell their own story: only a small number of young people voted Conservative at the last General Election. This is truly shocking. We once had the largest youth membership of any political party ‒ yet now the young dismiss us. We need to ask “Why?” ‒ and put it right.
The average age of Conservative supporters at the 2024 election was 66; and only among the 75 year olds and above was the Party the dominant choice of voters.
The message is unmistakable: change – or cease to be relevant.
We Conservatives have always been a coalition of ideas. Our Right and Left Wing can differ on policy. But, historically, they accommodated one another because they shared a broad philosophy that transcended disputes on specific policies.
No-one was dismissed from the Party for disagreeing with the majority view. All strands of opinion were represented in the high counsels of the Party. We opened our arms to welcome new members.
That broad approach served us well. We fare less well when moderate opinions are banished or – where maintained – tolerated and ignored.
So ‒ when our Party says “No” to Europe. “No” to Climate Change. “No” to Overseas Aid – it falls out with the majority of public opinion.
Such policies may delight a minority of opinion, but not the broad mass of electors in our essentially tolerant and kindly nation: it seriously alienates many of them.
This world of “No” gives a false impression of our Party. We do not believe in “No” to helping others or – as our opponents falsely claim – “Yes” to helping ourselves.
This loss of pragmatism, tolerance, nuance ‒ call it what you will ‒ has left many long-term Conservative supporters politically homeless. They are not Socialists or Liberals – nor ever will be – but the form of Conservatism they had always supported seemed to have been cast aside.
Whenever our Party lurches too far to the Right ‒ or condemns moderate Conservatives ‒ it pulls us further away from the traditional mass of our vote. We can almost see and feel our vote moving away from us. If you look at the results of recent by-elections the evidence is clear to see.
Some extreme voices wish to narrow our appeal further by expelling “One Nation” Conservatives from our Party, on the spurious grounds they are not Conservative enough.
Yet “One Nation” Conservatives believe ‒ as I do ‒ in personal freedoms; private enterprise; free trade; fair laws; low taxes; prudent public spending; an international outlook; and compassion for those facing hardship.
What part of that is not Conservative? To suppose anyone holding those views is un-Conservative is absurd. And to embrace such a narrow philosophy shrinks the Party from being a broad-based national movement, to resembling a petty and mean-minded cult.
A look at the recent decimation of Conservative seats in our once solidly supportive counties of Kent, Surrey, Sussex, Hampshire and the West Country is a reflection of how support has been lost by this abandonment of the Centre.
What of our opponents?
We can rely on Labour to fail – they are already doing so.
Their objective – to grow the economy – is right.
But their policies of over-taxation; restriction; a denial of aspiration; hostility to risk takers; a conscious desire to level down instead of levelling up – will deny them growth and guarantee stagnation.
I spoke – many years ago – of my desire to see a classless society: the present Labour Government is the most class conscious administration I have seen since the early 1960s. Last week’s by-election result – in friendly territory – shows how widely they are disregarded.
Reform UK is now showcasing its defects. It gained support by highlighting grievances, and scapegoating minorities. If any one of a minority group is a law-breaker, or violent, or sadistic, Reform label them all the same. But, of course, they are not.
More recently – in an effort to be all things to all people – Reform is now embracing overspending, nationalisation, and promises that will never – can never – be met. If you doubt me ‒ look at their performance in the local authorities they now govern: they are completely out of their depth.
Other policies are ill thought out. Reform wishes to nationalise half the water industry, yet does not seem to realise the reason for privatisation was because the State had no funds for investment. Nor do they now.
This is amateur populism let loose. Such foolish promises illustrate their unsuitability for power.
As Reform becomes ever more unrealistic, it opens up a big space on the Centre-Right of politics which is where Conservatism flourishes.
We must grasp this.
Our nation does not ask for the moon. In essence, people’s demands are very simple. They want a better life: a home; a job; more choice; more freedoms; more security ‒ not least in retirement.
Kemi Badenoch has set up Commissions to prepare future policy: that is the right way to proceed. It showcases serious intent. More please.
The possibility of electoral recovery is better than many believe. The electorate is less committed to any one political Party than, perhaps, at any time in the last 65 years.
We are now a nation of floating voters, and the Conservatives must offer sound reasons for them to float to us. In a nation disillusioned with politics we must re-offer hope and integrity.
I spoke disparagingly about populism because of what it can do. It can steal our future and undermine our freedoms. Let those who want to desert their present allegiance do so – and run to Reform UK. We will be better off without them.
Some Conservatives wish for an alliance with Reform. Why? Reform wishes to destroy the Party. Fortunately, our Leader opposes such an alliance and is right to do so.
The majority of Conservative voters understand that – if we were to allay with them – we would forever destroy the tolerant, broad-based, national Party that once we were – and can be again. It would be beyond stupid.
It is time for we Conservatives to face up to our responsibilities to our nation and our democracy. If we ignore them, the nation will ignore us.
But, if we rise to the challenge, we can return to being the great political force which once we were.
That is our duty and our privilege.
It is time to begin. We have no time to waste.