03 Sep Tory MP puts pressure on Rishi Sunak to ‘reassemble’ 2019 coalition
A LEADING backbench Conservative MP has put pressure on Rishi Sunak’s Government to reassemble the coalition which helped return the largest Tory majority since 1987 at the last general election.
Danny Kruger, who was elected as the MP for Devizes in Wiltshire in 2019, joined Camilla Tominey on GB News to discuss his vision and the release of his new book Covenant: The New Politics of Home, Neighbourhood and Nation.
Mr Kruger said: “My view is that we face a huge number of threats in the West generally, and in the UK specifically.
“They are long-term threats, largely driven by technology and changes in our society and our economy.
“We feel very precarious. I think that is driving a lot of the politics of the West at the moment, people feeling very nervous about all sorts of different threats: system threats, economic threats, cultural threats, ecological threats, military threats, of course, as well.
“The question is, how strong is our state and how strong is our society?
“What I argue for in my new book is that we need to think about the conditions in which people behave well towards each other.
“It’s not right for the state to come in and fix every problem in retrospect after it’s developed.
“We should think about, not just as a Government but as a society, how we nurture the virtues, values, behaviour, habits, relationships that make us strong.”
He added: “There was a call from the public, not just to take back control from Brussels, but for a reset in our politics and the way we organise ourselves.
“There’s a demand for significant change, and of course we delivered that with Brexit…given events since – Covid, Ukraine, economic challenge – I think the public are now asking ‘where’s the real change that we demanded last time around?’”
Ramping up pressure on Sunak, Kruger concluded: “What we think the Government should be doing is reassembling that coalition of voters who put us into power in 2019.
“That includes places like where I represent in Wiltshire, the traditional base of the Tory Party, but also those ‘small c’ conservative voters who used to vote Labour but voted for us last time because they want change.
“I think the public are still crying out for the change they demanded last time around.”
