It has been a recurring question over the past week: are you going to the Conservative party conference?
To which the answer is no. The same appears to be true for several of my contacts, as the UK’s now-opposition party struggles to find its place in a fractured political landscape.
Since its founding in 1834, the Conservative party has been the dominant political force in the UK. But now, under former trade secretary Kemi Badenoch, it is scraping by on 16 per cent in the polls. The Reform UK party of Nigel Farage is its foremost challenger on the right, and it is topping the polls at double that figure.
But, despite the gloom around the Conservatives, there is one pang of regret I have now that the party conference is under way. To miss the very useful panel discussions being organised by the Conservative Middle East Council – or Cmec, as it is known to its affiliates – is a big miss for my day job.
Cmec is a venerable part of the Conservative party’s international ties around the world. It is still a viable forum in the wake of the party’s devastation in last year’s general election.
One of the more important aspects of Cmec’s impact on UK politics is that it has trailblazed for a similar body in the governing Labour party – called the Labour Middle East Council – and here I argue that Reform UK should take steps to replicate it within its emerging policy structures.
The panels hosted by Cmec at this week’s event feature voices from the Middle East, including Emir Majid Arslan, a leading member of Lebanon’s Druze community. And it will play a prominent role in hosting Arab ambassadors and other diplomats at the conference venue in Manchester.
In UK politics, there are generally two types of ad hoc meeting groups that allow for discussions with international representatives. There are internal party meetings, and there are wider set-ups known as All-Party Parliamentary Groups. Both tend to have their own characteristics and are obviously driven by particular agendas.
What Cmec has done is to uniquely offer a big-tent approach to Middle Eastern issues, where agreement and consensus are not obligations but desired outcomes. Indeed, the forum was singled out for its exemplary record by Labour Middle East Council chairman William Patey.
Mr Patey talked about how “Lmec” was formed with the purpose of providing an entry point for the region in the governing party’s politics. He talked of how, as an ambassador, he had seen Cmec’s role in familiarising UK politicians with the Middle East on high-level trips and how it allowed the British body politic become familiar with the region and its issues, as seen by the people based there.
Lmec’s own panels at the Labour party conference in Liverpool last week hosted Moroccan MPs and a good complement of the ambassadors based in London. It also featured Middle East minister Hamish Falconer, who talked about the prospects of US President Donald Trump’s ceasefire initiative in Gaza coming to fruition.
One of the most prominent voices within UK Parliament on the policy towards Gaza has been Cmec chairman Kit Malthouse. He has made impassioned pleas to the Labour government to recognise the finding of genocide by the UN. At one point, he beseeched then-Labour foreign secretary David Lammy to consider the costs of the UK’s policy regarding the conflict. He even stunned fellow MPs into silence when he asked Mr Lammy if he feared facing the international courts over the UK’s failure to meet its international obligations.
Reform UK is just about five years old and lacks the institutional structures of its rivals. Mr Farage is a veteran campaigner on the issues facing the English electorate, but he confines himself to these top-line priorities. Deputy leader Richard Tice carries both the finance and the foreign affairs briefs as a spokesman on these issues.
Meanwhile, much of the heavy lifting on specific measures is carried by businessman Zia Yusuf, who is Reform UK’s policy chief. Its internal councils will no doubt come, and the Cmec model is a commendable one for the party as it makes political gains.
Mr Tice does have personal links to the Gulf, and people around him are in close contact with developments in countries such as Libya. This is welcome, given that familiarity with the broad developments in the region is helpful when trying to factor some of the dynamism on display in the region into his thinking on UK politics.
Giving institutional form to those currents in Reform UK would be valuable all-round. In Cmec, there is a readily available formula for successful linkage to the Middle East.
