Tom Tugendhat’s leadership pitch

It’s been a tough few years for Conservative Remainers. First the shock Brexit result and then the premiership of Boris Johnson with all that entails. But last night the long-suffering bearers of the torch of Tory moderation gathered together for a rally of the One Nation caucus of Conservative MPs and their supporters within the Tory Reform Group (TRG). 

Theresa May’s former deputy Damian Green welcomed attendees by quipping that ‘the TRG is essentially full of young and beautiful people – if you see people here who are not young and beautiful they may well be members of the One Nation caucus.’  

Green, a mainstay of various causes on the left-ish wing of the party over the past two decades, told activists that it was their task to ‘make sure that the voice of moderate conservatism, centre-right conservatism is as strong as possible within the party’ – a job ‘never more important than today because there are times when I slightly feel that it is only people like us that stop this party drifting back to being seen as the nasty party.’