He says that, "every Tory prime minister since 2010 shares in the blame. All are jointly responsible for the party’s lack of any legacy, apart from a de jure [legal] Brexit. Yet despite this unforgivable record, I still don’t detect any genuine remorse, any real contrition, any meaningful reflection, any realistic understanding of the scale of the apocalypse."
There is no acceptance that Brexit is at the core of the Tory party's problems. It has occupied minsters for years, stifled growth, and divided the nation but he appears to think it's the sole success instead of the foundation of every failure.
He may also have forgotten that he praised Liz Truss in September 2022 saying, "After six wasted years, Liz Truss is about to deliver a Brexit that actually works. Unlike the declinists who have no answers, the Prime Minister sees a radical opportunity to kick-start growth."
Now he thinks she shares the blame along with Cameron, May, Johnson, and Sunak.
Heath's solution is to bring the right together as he explains here:
"A necessary, but not sufficient, condition for a Tory rebirth is for the party to reunite the Right. It should be a broadish church, home to a range of opinions, but within narrower centre-Right parameters."
I suggest this is simply another fantasy like the Brexit he supported and still supports. How can you have a 'broad church' but with 'narrower parameters'? Even in the 1980s and before that, when the right was reasonably united there were plenty of Conserative members who didn't agree with Edward Heath on Europe or with Margaret Thatcher on privatisation. and argued vigorously against party policy. Now he is arguing for an even broader church, presumably to include Tice and Farage.
Heath accuses some Tories of being "insufferably snobby" and "privately dismissing their more principled activists or colleagues as 'nutters'."These are, according to him, Tories In Name Only who "never took Nigel Farage seriously."
I think it's pretty clear that the voters have decisively rejected the "principled activists" who have run the country for the last five years but have now been dismissed as nutters, of which Heath is one. People want to reverse Brexit. They want to return a lot of the privatised utilities to public ownership and, they want an end to much of the tub-thumping nationalism for which Farage is famous.
This isn't to deny that Reform is popular among some voters. It is certainly that. Reform UK is the very essence of populism, offering simplistic solutions to complex problems for gullible people. It is not however, a step on the path back to power.
To get back into government, Cameron had to tack to the center after 2005 and offer moderate policies that appealed to the mass of voters. It took the Tories 13 years to restore confidence in the party and they have now destroyed it and will have to learn the same lesson over again.
Heath concludes with this:
"Three major changes are required. First, the Tories must embrace mass private house building, including new suburbs and towns. Second, they must prioritise growth in every part of the UK and higher GDP per capita: the Tories must learn to love capitalism, the City, small business and investors once again. Third, they need to offer better healthcare, inspired by a more European model.
"The Tory party has failed the country, and hasn’t reached its electoral floor. It must change in every way, or die."
Labour are pretty much offering all three and I note even Heath recognises that the high tax EU countries offer better healthcare. The only problem with the Tories is that they want to do it with low taxes.
