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While the beleaguered Tories convenes in its conference city for its annual party conference, it has a lot to reflect on regarding its next steps. There is uncertainty if a viable path is available. We are in tough times for a governing group that now has almost nothing, if anything, new or unique to say to the electorate.

An Alternate Reality

It could have been so different if concrete steps had been made on an priority that resonates with people throughout the UK: Equal opportunity. But the former leadership lacked the basic understanding on how to turn the trendy talk on levelling up into actual implementation. For the two years after the 2019 election, it discussed what the phrase even meant.

It seemed strange to me, because I had previously explained to Johnson what social mobility signified when we first spoke about it during the contest for party leader. The expression was language I created and used at the DfE to talk about life chances. This became our guiding principle, and its purpose is clear: social mobility is the approach by which we realize equal access – not through reducing prospects away from those who are already advantaged, but rather by providing chances to those that are without.

Fundamental Idea

Another crucial DfE phrase we used, “potential is equally shared around the UK, however access isn’t”, represented another a intentional wording, representing the two parts of a equal opportunity plan. First, potential shared equally but not nurtured uniformly through our learning institutions. Second, chances not distributed fairly by employers or our economic system. Therefore, schools and companies were key to achieving improved equality of opportunity. This represented an priority about the social fabric of our country – fostering human talent and connecting them to opportunities.

The Reality of Implementation

What did the social mobility agenda evolve into under the previous government? Local investment schemes managed by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Street beautification and rearranged intersections. A white paper was published nearly three years after the Prime Minister took office, which saw existing policy approaches repackaged under the recently branded agenda.

Consequently, a wider fairness strategy went unpursued, as well as all the change that it might have driven – in funding, enterprise, fiscal strategy, tax and in local regeneration. Moreover, in learning, including a higher education sector that has become a target for leaders across parties – despite the fact that it remains the strongest driver of upward movement for young working-class people, personally, this country has had over the past 30 years. Maybe the sole mechanism of equal opportunity, operating at scale.

The Role of Ambition

Hope is essential for our country to prosper. For hope to exist, there needs to be a credible sense that effort and reward are related; that if people dream big, they can succeed. For political leadership, being able to instil a feeling of hope about the future is important. Research by the research body at the university and others, recently released, showed that the education department’s targeted regions I launched while in office – community-focused methods to enhancing learning results – led to students in those areas being up to a significant margin more hopeful about their life ahead than those in similar areas without these initiatives in place. The research confirms: just making an authentic start on fair opportunity strategies can swiftly and beneficially change how people feel about their prospects.

Lost Potential

Ignoring this evidence, and in the middle of its successor selection process, in that period, the Conservative government terminated the programmes. Why should any person in those areas vote for a political group that made that decision? This specific initiative is a clear case of what might have become a revolutionary administration strategy on levelling up, but that opportunity was completely wasted. Strategies such as this can inspire hope and aspiration. Conversely, as the ruling party discovered, reneging on commitments of fair chances is the costliest mistake any political party can make. The electorate penalized the administration for its ineffectiveness but, perhaps most of all, for its broken promises on equal opportunity.

Present Circumstances

Now the responsibility on social mobility and fair access has passed to a new administration. The levelling up rhetoric has been abandoned. The current administration has its own public messaging of “breaking down the barriers to opportunity”. The organization that is steadily supplanting the failing Conservative party, Reform UK, also has its own language – “reindustrialisation”. It’s a phrase to talk about additional chances in areas like the one I was raised in, in my hometown. It promises that an historical manufacturing base can be reborn into an industrial future.

For voters, it must appear as a repetitive cycle. Identical problem, alternative phrasing. However, so far, no progress.

The Way Forward

If Labour and Reform UK want to prevent the similar destiny, each group should understand the Tories’ mistakes on levelling up; that social mobility rhetoric is easy to say, but effective implementation of fairer outcomes is far more challenging. Britain’s persistently low life chances remains the primary challenge for our country, with the next generation unable to get a proper professional launch, those putting in effort in full-time jobs with few results after the housing costs are covered, and people across the country without any actual expectation their offspring will be able to do advance in life than they have.

Leaders can talk about fairer opportunities repeatedly. But where is the party that has the complete plan on equal opportunity? I see none. Whichever party succeeds initially, wins. Not just for their party, but, crucially, for a entire nation that has desperately requires fair chances so urgently.