Nick Timothy MP addresses Conservative Party Conference 2026

Today [Wednesday 7^th October], Nick Timothy MP, Shadow Justice Secretary, delivered his speech at Conservative Party Conference 2026.

Please see the full text of the speech below:

Checked against delivery

Here in this city, one year ago, police leaders engaged in a conspiracy.

Under pressure from Islamic extremists and sectarian politicians they surrendered.

With the council, they banned Jewish, Israeli football fans from Villa Park.

They suppressed intelligence that extremists were planning to arm themselves and attack the Israelis.

And they fabricated intelligence,

Portraying the fans as uniquely violent,

Military-trained thugs,

Who had to be banned to keep the peace.

It was a lie.

Senior police officers lied to the local Jewish population, to the country, and to Parliament.

And the Home Secretary and Prime Minister sat and watched.

It took the Conservatives to take responsibility and get to the truth.

But as I campaigned to expose the reality of what happened,

More and more emerged about life in many of our towns and cities,

About police leaders so compromised,

So corrupted by the ideology of multiculturalism,

They surrendered their operational independence to those it should have faced down,

Including many they should have locked up.

That is something we should never, ever tolerate

And I promise you,

Under Kemi's Conservatives, we never will.

A couple of miles away from here is Green Lane Mosque.

It's welcomed hate preachers,

Been linked to terror plots,

And once hosted a sermon on how to stone a woman to death.

Yet, in the pursuit of diversity, the Police decided it was an appropriate place to recruit new officers.

They even allowed the mosque to sit on the interview panel to appoint the Chief Constable.

The same Chief Constable whose force then banned those Jewish fans,

Whose force destroyed something precious, something hard-won,

Something for which this country was once known the world over;

The noble idea that the police are the public and the public are the police.

A noble idea but one we can no longer assume to be true.

So many parts of government are corrupted by radical identity politics and a deference to clan culture.

We can no longer trust our institutions to work for us all.

To uphold the principle that justice is blind.

That we're all equal before the law.

Think of the councils that covered up for the rape gangs.

The universities tolerating anti-Semitism on campus.

The CPS prosecuting people for offending the religious institution of Islam.

Judges no longer appointed on merit but by diversity.

Shorter sentences for criminals based on their age and identity.

The faces may change but the policies live on because this is Labour's ideology,

An ideology with serious consequences in the real world.

The Southport killer Axel Rudakubana, Henry Nowak's killer Vikram Digwa, the Nottingham killer Valdo Calocane.

With each of their terrible crimes, and many more like them, the failures of the state run deep.

A desire to be representative and inclusive has warped and manipulated and led to failure, suffering, and injustice.

This is a cancer.

And the next Conservative government will root it out.

Not long ago, there was a contract in this country between state and citizen.

We gave consent to be governed because government defended us from danger,

Protected the weak from the strong,

And punished those who did us harm.

But no more.

That contract is unwinding.

The unwritten rules of everyday British life,

Our manners,

And our behaviour are weakening.

The expectation of reciprocity,

Of fair play,

Is dissipating.

And the result is less trust, and greater danger.

It's true that some of the explanation lies in naivety.

But many with good intentions are unwittingly carrying out the work of those with a darker agenda.

A post-modern ideology that says our language,

Culture,

Our whole way of life

Oppresses people.

And says authority can never be legitimate and always exploits.

This is the ideology of the Left of the Labour Party.

It attacks our history and our institutions.

It says all cultures must be celebrated except our own.

And it separates people into two groups,

Usually based on race or religion.

So, if one person commits a crime it's their fault.

But if another commits the same crime it's society that's to blame.

This is two-tier justice.

It's actually profoundly racist.

It's an attack on the principle that we are all equal before the law.

And we the Conservative Party are going to fight it all the way.

The effects of this ideology are all around us.

Crime treated like a health problem,

With criminals helped, not punished.

Serious and repeat criminals, spared prison by sentencing rules that prioritise their welfare over victims.

Killers seen as vulnerable because of their mental health.

All disparities of outcome viewed as racist and treated more urgently than public safety or justice itself.

We've lost sight of the ideas and institutions that were made in Britain,

And we gave as a gift to the world,

That mean we all as equal citizens enjoy law and justice.

Lke trial by jury,

That ancient right dating back to Magna Carta that came under an appalling attack by this Labour Government

And saved only by the resistance of our party,

The Conservative Party.

As we stray further from these ideas and institutions, the result is a country where people feel divided and lost.

We once treated everyone as a responsible citizen,

Free to make choices but accountable for the choices we make.

All equal under one common law, not carved up into racial, religious, or cultural identities.

Free to act as we wish within the law but all equally responsible if we break that law.

That is the British way, and it is the Conservative way.

But, we must be frank.

Some of these problems grew during our years in power.

They're growing far worse,

Dramatically worse,

Under this Labour government.

But to be trusted again, we must show we understand why these things have happened.

Too many Conservatives were too slow to understand the ideology that took over the public sector so quickly.

And many who did oppose these ideas were steamrollered by the bureaucracy of government,

The organs of the state,

And laws that took power away from Ministers.

We lost our sense of who we are.

And too many lost touch with common sense.

There is no doubt that Kemi understands this.

This is a new generation of Conservatives,

And we have a credible plan to bring wayward institutions back to the principles of British justice and the rule of law.

So, we'll scrap the Equality Duty.

We'll leave the European Convention on Human Rights.

We'll sort out the CPS.

We'll stop the creep of modern blasphemy laws

And get rid of Labour's Islamophobia definition.

We'll shut down the judicial appointments quango.

We'll appoint judges on merit

And bring the law back onto the side of decent people.

With Kemi's leadership,

My close work with Chris Philp

And my fantastic justice team,

Kieran Mullan and Sarah Bool,

They're here today,

I know we can do it.

We need to be strong.

Strong in defending our way of life,

In the protection of ordinary law-abiding people,

And in the projection of our Conservative values.

We have to restore the contract.

If you do the right thing, we will back you.

If you're the victim of crime, you will see justice done.

If you're a criminal, you will face real consequences.

It may be unfashionable these days to talk about consequences,

About punishment.

But civilisation depends on our willingness to use force,

Keep order,

And punish the guilty.

We've tried so hard to understand criminals and extremists,

We've ended up tolerating the intolerant,

Accepting the unacceptable,

And excusing the inexcusable.

And the country has had enough.

We, all of us, have had enough.

Progressives dismiss prison as costly,

Pointless,

Counter-productive.

Even those who defend it often say the main purpose of prison is to rehabilitate criminals.

I completely disagree.

Of course, we should, where we can,

Make sure prisoners are literate,

Numerate,

And employable.

Of course, when they're released,

They should have a home to go to

And, where possible, a place to work.

But prison is there to punish,

To do justice,

And stop criminals committing crime. 

Prison works because it takes dangerous criminals away from decent, law-abiding people and keeps us safe.

We know this because we've done it before.

When the great Michael Howard started building more prisons,

Capacity almost doubled and crime fell by fifty per cent.

Some insist that crime is still low and,

In some ways, that may be so.

But many crimes,

Too many to count,

Too difficult to investigate have moved online.

Sex crimes are on the rise.

High-volume crimes like shoplifting and phone theft are too.

And just ask any normal person about the anti-social behaviour they live with,

Too afraid to challenge it and too resigned to report it to the Police.

And now Labour are letting thousands of criminals out of prison early,

Most after just a third of their sentence.

Now they want to go further and release IPP prisoners,

Some of the most violent people in prison.

And they've scrapped short sentences,

Effectively decriminalising shoplifting, street theft, and knife crime.

We're going to stop all of that.

We are going to reverse this drift into defeatism and decline.

We are going to build 50,000 new prison places,

The biggest expansion of the prison estate in the modern history of our country.

In the weeks ahead, I'm going to set out more detail about how we'll do it.

But it's fully funded, with cuts to international aid.

And it's necessary because these are the numbers we need to abolish Labour's early release schemes,

Restore short-term sentences,

And make a reality of this very serious warning:

If you commit a violent crime,

Or if you're a repeat offender,

You may think you can get away with it.

But under the Conservatives, we are going to lock you up.

We're going to judge our success not by how few people we send to prison,

But by how many criminals we put behind bars.

We'll get foreign criminals out of our country.

We'll stop treating criminals like victims and ordinary citizens like criminals.

There'll be consequences for those who do wrong.

And we are not going to apologise for it.

We are going to restore the contract that puts the forces of law and order back on the side of the people.

That makes us feel safe on the streets,

Secure in our homes,

Able to tell our children that yes life is fair;

Do the right thing and you will get on, do the wrong thing and live with the consequences.

Under Kemi, the Conservative Party is changing.

We know our values.

We know who we are once more.

And together, we will get our country back on the right track.

Thank you.

Thank you all very much,

And now we are going to hear from my good friend and my excellent colleague,

The Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp.