Inside the New Centre Right

The Conservatives’ Emerging Blueprint for Power

A New Centre Right is emerging inside the Conservative Party as the most coherent response yet to Britain’s economic drift and political malaise. Tough borders, reindustrialisation, cheap and reliable energy, mass housebuilding, and wider ownership — these are the pillars around which a new Conservative programme is forming. Its public face is Robert Jenrick, shadow justice secretary, but it is carried forward by a new intake of MPs and an intellectual hinterland driven forward by a few key players. What distinguishes this project from both Reform UK and the Tory modernisers of the 2000s is its operational bent: less empty rhetoric, more focus on how to build, make, and power things in Britain again.

The timing is not accidental. Productivity has been flat since the financial crisis, real wages are barely higher than in 2008, and household bills are driven up by some of the highest industrial energy costs in the world. The planning system has created a multi-million home shortage. Migration, once justified as an engine of growth, is seen instead to have piled pressure on housing and public services while squeezing the lower paid. Meanwhile, the global economy has entered a period of turbulence, with fragile supply chains, great-power rivalry and energy shocks exposing how vulnerable Britain has become.

The New Centre Right (NCR) - which some online have previously referred to as ‘Anglofuturism’ - argues that decline is a political choice and seeks to address the regional economic inequality that drove the Brexit revolution. Its wager is that if the state clears bottlenecks, backs domestic production, secures the borders, and restores a pathway to ownership, Britain can turn stagnant growth into rising living standards. This is not a nostalgic project, but a deliberate attempt to build a governing conservatism fit for the 2020s.

The Proposition at a Glance

The NCR rests on five central planks. First, borders: the belief that Britain must have control of who comes in and the ability to remove those with no right to stay. Second, energy: a commitment to cheap, reliable domestic supply through new gas capacity, North Sea extraction, and nuclear, ending what they see as self-imposed energy scarcity. Third, planning and housing: a determination to break gridlock in the system and build homes at scale, cutting the shortage that locks younger generations out of ownership. Fourth, industrial strategy: targeted support for sectors Britain needs for security and growth, from advanced manufacturing to life sciences. Fifth, fairness and ownership: spreading capital, property and savings more widely, so prosperity is not hoarded in London and the South East.

The ideas first began to take form through Onward’s Future of Conservatism project, co-authored by Nick Timothy, Gavin Rice and Michael Gove, which gave shape to a more interventionist, blue-collar conservatism. That instinct mirrors the “blue collar conservative” revolution in the United States, which has been remade by key thinkers close to JD Vance. In Westminster, Karl Williams at the Centre for Policy Studies deserves credit for pioneering much of the analytical work that reframed immigration not just as a cultural issue but as an economic cost and a matter of basic fairness.

The New Centre Right is also beginning to broaden its demographic lens. Until now, the focus has been on immigration as both an economic and cultural pressure point. But Britain’s collapsing fertility rate presents an equally stark challenge, with profound implications for the tax base, social care and long-term national resilience. A pronatalist turn is taking shape, led by Onward’s Phoebe Arslanagić-Little, whose work has put family policy and demographic renewal firmly onto the NCR agenda. The underlying case is stark: without more children and stronger families, no growth strategy can endure.

This project defines itself against two alternatives. Compared with the old Tory model of hyper-globalisation, it rejects the idea that endless migration, free-flowing capital, and the services industry alone can sustain living standards. Compared with Reform UK, it offers something more serious than grievance: not just anger at decline, but a programme to reverse it.

Its ethos can be summed up in one sentence: produce more at home, reward hard work, control the borders.

The Four Horsemen

At the heart of the New Centre Right revolution is a small group of parliamentarians who combine sharp messaging with real policy ambition.

Robert Jenrick MP is both the public face and the unusual hybrid: a comms operator and policy fluent politician. Westminster rarely produces figures who can do both; the last Conservative leader who combined these traits convincingly was David Cameron. Jenrick’s style is stripped of waffle - focused, prosecutorial, and geared towards delivery.

Nick Timothy MP is the intellectual ballast of the group. Present-day rather than retrospective, his focus is on reindustrialisation and getting Britain building again, setting out the philosophical scaffolding for a conservatism that works in an era of economic insecurity.

Katie Lam MP has quickly established herself as a political firecracker on the back of viral policy explainers, particularly around justice and immigration, which have marked her out as one of the most detail-driven MPs of her intake. She is deep in the policy weeds but also unafraid of punchy topics.

Jack Rankin MP is the dark horse of the pack. A Mancunian mathematician turned MP for Windsor, he is less polished than his colleagues but more willing to push the boundaries - in the Commons and online. That bluntness gives him a cut-through where others in his party prefer caution.

The Economic Turn: From Globalisation to Production

The New Centre Right diagnoses Britain’s stagnation as the product of an economic model too reliant on consumption and migration, too casual about offshoring supply chains, and too indifferent to the costs imposed on industry. The result has been high consumption and low investment, punishingly expensive industrial energy, and a planning system that chokes off both homes and infrastructure.

The remedy is framed as a decisive turn from globalisation to production. That means a targeted industrial strategy to back sectors critical to national strength, an expansion of domestic energy capacity to end reliance on volatile imports, and the liberalisation of planning to build homes, transport and energy infrastructure at scale. It also means keeping more British capital in Britain, directing investment into intellectual property and high-growth companies rather than watching them sold or scaled abroad.

This turn has been given intellectual fuel through forums such as Shadow Minister for Policy Renewal and Devlopment, Neil O’Brien MP’s Substack and the recent Spectator × American Compass Conference, widely regarded inside Westminster as the moment the reindustrialisation case went mainstream. The architect behind the conference, Onward’s Gavin Rice, has quickly established himself as a key thinker within the NCR movement and the bridge between UK Conservatives and those behind JD Vance’s economic vision.

This is not a rhetorical shift but one that sets out measurable tests. Success would mean the gap between UK and US/EU industrial power prices beginning to close; business investment and gross fixed capital formation rising after a decade of stagnation; and output in tradable sectors stabilising rather than continuing to drift downwards. The wager is simple: if Britain can build and make more at home, productivity and wages can finally begin to rise in real terms again.

Policy Stack

Borders & Law
End mass migration, leave the ECHR, tougher legal framework to ensure removals are enforceable, investment in actual removals capacity, and full transparency on crime and migration data.

Energy
Expand domestic supply through new gas peaker plants, accelerated grid connections, fresh North Sea licensing, and reopening the debate on fracking. Build a credible long-term nuclear pipeline to guarantee stable baseload power.

Planning & Housing
Put building at the heart of national renewal with a system that reflects the majority who want more homes, not just the loudest objectors. Move towards a representative, rules-based planning framework that gives certainty, speeds up delivery, and focuses growth where demand is highest.

Industrial Strategy
Back functions rather than national champions: semiconductors, life sciences, defence manufacturing, and chemicals. Reform procurement to favour domestic capability, improve export finance, and align skills pipelines to regional industrial clusters.

Fairness & Ownership
Spread capital and ownership more widely by expanding home ownership, opening up retail access to capital markets, and reforming tax to reward saving and long-term holding over speculation.

How It Differs from Past Conservatism and Faragism

The New Centre Right marks a clear break from the instincts that defined Conservative economics since the 1980s. Then, the default was laissez-faire: faith in globalisation, reliance on cheap imported energy, migration treated as a lever for growth, and a light-touch approach to industrial policy that left production to the market.

Now, the emphasis is on active statecraft. The state is expected to clear bottlenecks, back domestic production, and lower the cost of energy for households and industry alike. Migration policy is to be tightened, not treated as a shortcut to growth. Strategic trade-offs, whether in energy, planning, or supply chains, are accepted as the price of resilience.

Reform UK, on the other hand, presents itself as radical but in practice is a single-issue party centred almost entirely on immigration. Beyond that it lapses into vibes-based Nimbyism and fiscal cakeism designed to appeal to their Boomer-heavy base, promising both higher spending and lower taxes, while resisting the planning and energy projects that would actually underpin growth.

The New Centre Right, through key proponents like Onward’s Sir Simon Clarke, positions itself as the opposite: pro-growth and unapologetically Yimby. Its agenda is to build: more homes, more infrastructure, more domestic energy capacity - and to pair tough borders with a credible economic plan. Where Reform trades in protest, the NCR is offering a programme that could actually govern.

Communications Method: Why the Videos Matter

The NCR, through new-age comms gurus like Jenrick’s Communications Chief Tom Milford and Digital Whizzkid Dov Forman, has embraced a new style of political communication built around short, mobile-native clips. These are not generic talking-head pieces but issue-led videos designed to capture trade-offs: fare dodgers on the Underground, tool theft at trade shows, and sharp explainers on immigration rules.

The function of these videos, pushed relentlessly by NCR organisations like Conservative YIMBY and Next Gen Tories, is threefold. They define opponents in vivid terms, they normalise conflict as part of policy debate, and they draw in new audiences who would never sit through a Commons speech. Politics is reframed as something seen and felt, not just spoken.

But the risks are clear. As Reform has shown, without detail, the line between substance and stunt is thin. The NCR answer is to pair the viral moments with serious policy work: think-tank papers, testable metrics, and a coherent programme. The aim is to ensure this isn’t “all theatre, no delivery” but a new form of political seriousness adapted to the digital age.

The Path to Power

The New Centre Right’s electoral logic is clear. Its broad coalition lies with renters in big metropolitan areas locked out of ownership, commuter-belt families frustrated by planning bottlenecks, SME owners squeezed by energy costs and crime, and most importantly the industrial regions of the North and the Midlands that need new anchors for jobs and investment. These are voters who want control, security and the chance to get ahead - not just protest.

The opposition presents obvious vulnerabilities. As Onward Fellow Chris Worrall’s defection from Labour brought into sharp relief, the government is exposed on housing delivery, with supply still far short of demand and approvals now at record low under Starmer. The energy cost gap between Britain and competitors leaves space for a pro-industry message. And border credibility remains a weak spot for both major parties.

Building alliances will be critical. The NCR’s strength comes from aligning with businesses that actually make and build things, universities tied to industrial clusters, and local leaders prepared to trade regulatory flexibility for concrete delivery. That combination of national agenda and local execution is what could translate a factional project into a governing majority.

Conclusion

The New Centre Right is still in formation, but it already looks more coherent than any Conservative faction in years. Its offer is simple: tough borders, more homes, cheaper energy, and an economy that makes and builds again. Where past Tory projects drifted into globalisation without any clear long-term plan, and where Reform UK trades in grievance without solutions, this movement is trying to supply a programme for government. If the Conservatives have a future, it lies here: in a movement willing to build, fight, and govern as if decline is no longer an option.