Leaders are taking party into oblivion, say activists

The Conservative Party is heading for "oblivion", the leader of a group of grassroots Tory activists said yesterday.

Michael Normington, chairman of the Charter Movement, which campaigns for greater democracy inside the party, told a fringe meeting in Bournemouth: "I say this to Iain Duncan Smith and his team: we have been sinking deeper and deeper into the mire with every initiative that you have taken – each initiative designed to further restrict the role of party members in the running of the organisation.

"Before we finally sink into oblivion, why not take a minute to consider the other option. Get the organisation off our backs and trust the people."

Mr Normington was attacking plans being considered by the party chairman, Theresa May, for Conservative Central Office to intervene directly in the selection of parliamentary candidates to make sure that more women are chosen.

Options include a shortlist of names being handed to local parties in target seats and groups of constituencies being told to ensure that between them half the candidates selected in their area are women.

But the hostile reaction at yesterday's meeting suggests that Tory leaders have a huge battle on their hands.

Mr Normington said the lack of women candidates was due to the failure of Central Office to ensure more women were on the party's list, and called for the officials responsible to be sacked.

He said: "What Mrs May fails to recognise is that while seeking to make the candidates selected more representative of the population at large, and declaring that she will intervene if necessary, she has no intention of seeking to make party membership more representative of the electorate. To do that she would need to create a party organisation that drew new members in, and one that was responsive to its members' desire for change. This, of course, is not on her agenda."

Mrs May came in for further criticism yesterday over her hard-hitting conference speech on Monday in which she accused some Tories of "demonising minorities".

Oliver Letwin, the shadow Home Secretary, told a fringe meeting: "I don't think we have ever had the inclination to demonise minorities or anybody else. At various moments we may be mistaken very slightly with sounding as if we are demonising, which is a completely different position."

He said he was "softer" and "weaker" on immigration and asylum than David Blunkett, the Home Secretary.

"There are dyed-in-the-wool Tories who read the Daily Mail and feel that David Blunkett's rhetoric is right and that mine is too weak and wrong. I wonder what those people will feel three years from now when there is no improvement. I think they will prefer something softer and more effective in practice," he said.

Lord Tebbit, a former Tory chairman, criticised Mrs May for branding the Tories "the nasty party". He said: "I think this 'nice' and 'nasty' is really irrelevant. The only impact it will have is that when we get back to Parliament, when the Commons comes back, Blair and other government ministers will be very eager to constantly tell Conservatives they're nasty and that even their own party calls them nasty."

He said the only nastiness in the party "was among the group of people who pulled down Margaret Thatcher and left the party utterly rudderless for some time".

He said Mrs May had to ask herself why people voted for the party in 1979, 1983 and 1987 if it was seen as "nasty".