Return to the Centre Ground Boris. Please!

I don’t know how many of you stayed up to watch the election results last night as I did (or at least tried to until 3am) but I have to say, speaking personally, it genuinely felt momentous. I haven’t been so engaged since 1997. Irrespective of how we feel about the results I think we can all agree that it is a privilege to actually be able to participate in helping choose the direction of your country. Even if you feel the “other side” has won. 

And now that Boris and his Conservatives have taken what appears to be the largest haul of seats since Maggie in 1987, I’m trying to consider what that direction will be.

Much of it depends on which Boris Johnson our Prime Minister chooses to become. Will he be the social liberal who we saw lead London or will he be the populist bombast who steered the party towards what many see as the hard right? Because he is or has been both when it has suited him. So what will suit him now?

I personally hope that he will return to the centre ground and build on his promises for a One Nation agenda. And I hope for this not because I’m a Tory or a fan of Boris per se, but because I fundamentally believe that if our country is to progress, the centre ground is the only place that can build bridges between our fractured communities. 

And I think that he will, not because I think those are his values at heart (he has, after all, proven himself to be rather effective at adaptation over the years) but because, if his government is to succeed and sustain, he will need to, practically, win over the disaffected, traditionally labour voting communities who have sided with him on the one issue of Brexit. That requires policies that answer the needs of the left as well as right. And those policies can only be found in the centre-ground.

I am and always will be a fan of Rory Stewart. His politics of pragmatic realism, of honesty and integrity and of the importance of compromise I think are still the most hopeful and positive we could have aspired to achieve as a people. He would have been, in my view, a truly fantastic leader for this country and I hope, passionately, that he return to national politics in the near future. 

I believe in him because he believes in people. He spoke to both left and right, to Remainers and Leavers, to young and old alike. Boris now must do the same. But with a history of questionable sincerity at times, he has a much higher hill to climb, which is why he must (and I hope will) prove it by what he actually now does.

I personally don’t believe he will impose the regulatory bonfire some are suggesting. Europe is still our largest market so alignment is in his immediate best interests. I don’t believe the NHS will be sold off, because it would be political suicide to do so. And I feel that an inclusive immigration policy will be implemented, not least because our economy needs it - the fact that Sajid Javid has retained the Treasury should speak volumes, as will the reshuffle on Monday. 

On balance, I don’t believe that the country as a whole has taken a massive slide to the right. We haven’t woken up to a racist, monocultural UK. Or at least I don’t feel that as I walk the streets. I feel that Labour voters in Redcar just wanted to move on and Boris, rightly or wrongly, provided them with the message they wanted to hear to secure that sense of closure. Now that they’ve got it, he’ll have to win hearts and minds to maintain his position and he can only do that by delivering on the promises he made in the election. And that will drag him back to the centre.

I remember Tony Blair’s landslide in 1997. There was a real sense of positive change in the air. I’m not sure that this feels or tastes the same. I don’t have a spring in my step and Oasis or Blur on the tip of my lips as I skip to work. But last night surely did send a message that people, more than anything, want closure to focus, once again, on what we need as a people and, I suppose, space and time to heal. That is what Boris, with his majority, will have to deliver if he’s to stay. And I can’t see him doing that with a right wing populist agenda. Or maybe I just can’t allow myself to believe that. We’ll find out for sure in the weeks ahead