Election campaigning is a bit like painting the Forth bridge: once you've finished one campaign you have to start all over again. The election cycle is such that there is rarely a moment to take stock. And now the party must look ahead to the European elections in 2009.
After our success in the local and London mayoral elections a couple of months ago it would be tempting to think that we will enjoy the same performance next year. It would also be fatally complacent because so much can happen in that time. Preparation and discipline will be vital.
First, we should draw a line under the thorny issue of MEP selection and the changes made that brought in top-listing and the regional selection colleges. ConHome has pursued this issue energetically and with typical determination but we must put it behind us. Of course, there will be those who consider the changes an unpardonable slight on members' rights. Some people have even left the party over the issue. But opening up sores like this is exactly what our political opponents - and the press - want to see, namely a party fixated on Europe and prone to eternal bickering on the matter.
Second, sitting MEPs must now do what the party's compliance officer Hugh Thomas deems necessary to meet public concerns about abuse of expenses. We cannot afford to have this albatross of repeated allegations of impropriety hanging over our necks in the run-up to polling day. Candidates on the European regional lists who are not MEPs must also be made fully aware of the new appetite for scrutiny that they will face. As David Cameron said, it's not about whether you've broken the rules, it's about whether you've acted contrary to the spirit of the rules.
Third, we need to crack on with drafting a robust and unequivocal manifesto. Undoubtedly this document will be built around David Cameron's declared ambition to establish a new group in the European Parliament, thus severing our link to the EPP. This, again, is an issue on which we can't afford division or strife, either among party members or among Conservative MEPs themselves who, if seeking re-election, have signed a written pledge to adhere to the party leader's decision.
Fourth, we need to be confident enough to play to our strengths as a government-in-waiting rather than be dragged into defensive mode. Whether we are part of the EPP apparatus or not, the centre-right political leaders in Europe will be looking to David Cameron for a clear steer on what sort of a partner Britain will be under a Conservative government. Our party leader has never favoured EU withdrawal - or at least never during his time as leader - and so our campaign must make a positive case for EU membership in a reformed Union with different priorities and a focus shifted away from institutional tinkering and towards tangible improvements in our lives. We will also have to deliver on our policy to renegotiate the damaging Social Chapter legislation that Tony Blair rushed into in 1997.
On a final note, my own instincts from observing UKIP at close quarters suggest to me that the party is a spent force. Certainly UKIP performed woefully in the local and mayoral elections and there is not much evidence, however much euroscepticism is revived by the recent Irish vote, that UKIP will make anything like the impact it did in 2004 when Robert Kilroy-Silk appeared on the scene like a rabbit out of a hat (and promptly disappeared again having branded his colleagues as incompetent). But of course we can't afford to take anything for granted.
