'A Summer Season of Debate' - Reviewed

Big names, big thoughts, in the summer conference season

Montage © Facts4EU.Org 2026

A personal view of what was said and who said it

As Parliament rose for the summer recess, your correspondent attended two political conferences held shortly afterwards which gave delegates much to think about as they headed off on their summer holidays.

The timing was apposite because the United Kingdom is at an inflexion point. We have a new Prime Minister heading up a new administration following a disastrous two years under Sir Keir Starmer. A change of leader however is the very least that is required. In the view of this correspondent we need a fundamental change of policy across the board if the United Kingdom is to be saved.

The issues which concern people are not narrowly party-political, they affect each and every one of us: mass, uncontrolled immigration, threats to our ancient freedoms and liberties, a nation unable to defend itself at home and abroad, spiralling debt, a cost-of-living crisis and a system of government which is both unaccountable and hopelessly inefficient. In short, a country in which nothing works.

All of us regardless of party affiliation should be concerned about the direction the country is heading in. It was therefore heartening to be able to attend the following two events at which many of these ideas were discussed. What follows is a summary of both.

‘The Disraeli Conference’

On a sweltering Saturday in early July an all-day event in honour of Benjamin Disraeli was held in a conference suite at the Bull Hotel in Gerrards Cross to which more than a hundred delegates attended.

Addressing a predominantly Conservative audience, Dr David Starkey CBE opened the conference, outlining Disraeli’s particular philosophy, his rise to power and the measures he took to popularise the party from one that represented the narrow, vested interests of the landed gentry to a popular movement that embraced the urban working-class and extended the franchise. A link to his introductory speech can be found here.

Head teacher and historian Sir Anthony Seldon provided his own analysis of Disraeli’s career from his entry to Parliament in 1837 to his death in 1881, concluding that in his opinion Disraeli was one of Britain’s all-time great Prime Ministers.

The rest of the day included keynote speeches and discussion panels which focussed on Disraeli’s legacy in relation to democracy and freedom and the obligation we now have to try to uphold those principles which are under threat as never before.

Among those taking part were Sir Bill Cash, Steve Baker the former MP for Wycombe, Ben Habib and Jack Rankin MP.

Summarising the day’s discussion Sir Bill Cash gave the closing keynote address which we include in the enclosed link.

‘We’re in the fight of our lives’

Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC)

Liz Truss

Introduction and Welcome

The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) is a long-standing annual conference in the United States attended by conservative activists and officials and in July CPAC UK hosted its own inaugural event at the Intercontinental London The O2 in Greenwich.

Hosting the event was former Prime Minister Liz Truss alongside her opposite number Matt Schlapp, the US head of CPAC. As a prelude to what followed, they discussed shared national challenges including threats to freedom of speech, mass immigration and the problems of unresponsive government institutions. The discussion set the tone for the whole conference: Britain is on the brink and urgent action is needed to rescue the country.

An Enterprise Britain: Rebooting Britain’s Economy

Andrew Griffith MP

‘We are now a command economy and it is making us poorer’

Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffiths MP kicked off the economic debate with a call to arms. The United Kingdom, he said, was sliding down the prosperity ladder as a result of government policy. The State had grown too big and the burdens on business too heavy to bear. The gap between what the country was earning and what it was spending was getting wider and wider and very soon the deficit would become unsustainable.

He called for cuts to business regulation, a bonfire of the quangos, repeal of the Employment Rights Bill, lower, simpler taxes and a commitment to re-open our oil and gas fields to provide manufacturers with access to cheap and abundant energy.

‘Protect them, don’t attack them’

Citing the real concern of many entrepreneurs who are thinking of leaving the country, the Business Secretary urged the government to support small businesses, not make life harder and harder for them.

Optimism, he said, was in very short supply and a drastic reversal of the present government’s economic policy was urgently needed to arrest our decline.

Migration and the changing face of Europe

Matt Goodwin

‘Only a political class which hates its own people would allow this’

In a tour-de-force designed to galvanise a somewhat lacklustre audience, political commentator and Reform UK candidate Matt Goodwin gave an impassioned plea to those inside the auditorium to wake up and vote for change before the United Kingdom loses its identity.

Quoting the Trump administration’s warning that Europe faced ‘civilisational erasure’, Professor Goodwin painted a bleak picture in which Europe’s best and brightest leave the continent for a better life elsewhere and are replaced by ‘drug-dealing, illiterate goat-herders.’

He argued that nothing less than a policy of national preference will be required to reverse the decades of unregulated immigration into the country which now threaten to overwhelm us. Overseas aid must end, priority to UK citizens be given for social housing and hospital treatment, the Muslim Brotherhood banned, postal voting abolished and we should stop stealing nurses and doctors from abroad and start training up our own.

Other recommended measures included repeal of the European Convention on Human Rights, a reduced civil service and abolition of diversity, equity and inclusion targets in relation to recruitment. We can expect to hear much more of this as part of Reform UK’s prospective manifesto commitments in the run-up to the next general election.

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How the Left Sabotaged Britain’s Constitutions

Mark Littlewood, Dr David Starkey

‘We need a restoration akin to 1688 to repeal the Blairites constitutional reforms’

Complaining about the rapid turnover of Prime Ministers in recent years is to mistake the symptom for the cause of our political instability according to Dr David Starkey in a forum discussion with his friend and colleague Mark Littlewood.

Three decades of transferring authority to unelected external bodies has crippled successive administrations which now find themselves paralyzed by a combination of judicial activism and more than 400 quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations (quangos) which Parliament itself created. We are now at the stage where government is effectively waging war against itself.

‘The Great Repeal’

Any future government which hopes to get anything done will have as its first priority to re-set our constitution along the lines it was originally designed for and return ultimate sovereignty to Parliament. Unless and until we do that nothing else can be addressed because power no longer resides in Westminster but with the judges and the unelected quangos. As things stand, Parliament has effectively signed away its own sovereignty.

This was a fascinating discussion because it got to the heart of the crisis of government which we are all suffering from. Without sovereignty nothing is possible which is why CIBUK will continue to champion the cause. Nothing could be more important.

Fighting the Brainwashing of Our Children

The widespread indoctrination of our children at school is a growing concern among many parents up and down the country. Among those taking part in the discussion were Dame Andrea Jenkyns, the Mayor of Lincolnshire and former Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Skills in Boris Johnson’s government.

Travelling around Lincolnshire and visiting schools she says has really opened her eyes to some of the damaging ideas now being promoted, including graphic sex education for Years 5 and 6 (9-11 year-olds). This has led to a huge rise in home-schooling, so concerned are parents about the content of the current curriculum. In Lincolnshire alone more than two thousand children are now being educated at home.

Also taking part in the discussion was Stephen Nikola Bartulica, a member of the Croatian Parliament and an associate professor of political philosophy at the Catholic University of Croatia in Zagreb who campaigns to uphold Christian teaching at the heart of his country’s education system.

Elsewhere, the panel highlighted security dangers arising from vicious on-line social media campaigns which not only threaten free speech but life itself as the recent murder of high-profile public figures illustrates.

Drill Baby Drill, Mine Baby Mine

Kathryn Porter, Founder of Watt-logic

‘Air of complete unreality in current debate’

CIBUK has consistently championed a diverse energy mix as part of its campaign work to secure Britain’s economic future. The arbitrary rush to net-zero flies in the face of common-sense and is currently doing enormous damage to our economy.

It was therefore heartening to hear these views endorsed by a distinguished panel of experts.

Hosting the debate was Kathryn Porter, founder of Watt-Logic, an independent energy consultancy and an expert in corporate electricity, gas and oil markets. Others on the panel included Daniel Turner, a PR consultant for Power the Future, a US campaign lobby group promoting all forms of energy, and Andrea Jenkyns who remained on stage to take part in the energy debate.

The arguments against net-zero fundamentalism are well-known and beginning to make an impact on the wider national debate. The UK produces 0.8% of all global emissions and even if one were to close down the entire economy it would reduce global temperatures at the turn of the next century by just one hundredth of a degree.

Coal is still being used in vast quantities by our competitors and the economic advantage they enjoy is startling. The cost of energy in China is priced at 5p per kW/hr. In the UK it is 50p.

In a best-case scenario only 20% of our energy can be generated by renewables and many of the everyday products we use from plastic packaging to car tyres and computers are made of plastic which require oil as part of the manufacturing process.

Where is the logic in importing huge quantities of oil and gas from Norway’s neighbouring fields and enriching their economy when we could be drilling and importing our own?

With thousands of acres of farmland being taken up by solar panels, we are also compromising our own food security and destroying what remains of our agricultural industry as well as damaging the ecosystem in our fields.

Will the present government alter course to take account of reality? The initial omens are not promising. Miattah Fahnbullah the new Energy Secretary is said to be even more committed to net-zero than her predecessor. We shall know soon enough.

Making Great Britain Great Again

Nigel Farage

The leader of Reform UK needs no introduction. In a climactic speech to bring the conference to a close, he implored the assembled delegates to join him and his movement to make Britain great again.

The speech can be watched in full here.

- Reporting and commentary by Ben Philips, Deputy Chairman, Brexit Facts4EU.Org; Vice-Chairman & Communications Director, CIBUK.Org

Politicians and journalists can contact us for details, as ever.

Brexit Facts4EU.Org, Tues 11 Aug 2026

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