Former Harlow MP Robert Halfon on life after 14 years at Westminster: ‘I feel like a crack addict on methadone… because, of course, it’s been so much of my life. But it was time to stop.’
Conservative maverick Robert Halfon feels “like a crack addict on methadone” as he gets to grips with life outside the House of Commons.
The former education minister is, however, ready to go cold turkey as he embraces opportunities outside of Westminster at the end of a 14-year parliamentary career.
In March, he announced his decision to step down, resigning from his Government role, but admitted his mind had been made up several months before.
Anticipating a General Election in May, not July, he discussed his departure with the chief whip back in January. Had he seen the writing on the wall?
“Obviously, I thought we were going to lose, but that was genuinely nothing to do with my decision,” he said.
“I actually thought I could win Harlow because, you know, we only lost it by 2,000 with the new candidate.”
In fact, Hannah Ellis, his protégée and successor as the Tory candidate, trailed 2,504 votes behind Labour victor Chris Vince on July 4, as the party’s share slumped by 32.8%.
Mr Halfon made his name as a politician by championing drivers, persuading his party to freeze fuel duty for 14 years.
He was also an advocate for the disabled, drawing on personal experience. He was born with mild cerebral palsy and developed osteoarthritis, so he walks with crutches.
David Cameron handed him a seat in the Cabinet as minister without portfolio in 2015, but over the years he has been unafraid to rebel. Notably, in 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic, he was one of just five Tory MPs who voted against Boris Johnson’s plans to end free school meals for disadvantaged children in the holidays.
Mr Halfon, 55, spent a quarter of a century – almost half his life – fighting for, and then holding, Harlow for the Conservatives.
In the 2001 and 2005 elections, he was second to Labour’s Bill Rammell before turning the tables on him by taking the seat for the Tories in 2010 with a vote share of 44.9%.
He gradually increased that to 48.9% in 2015, 54% in 2017 and 63.5% in 2019, when he had his biggest majority, 14,063.
He said: “I’d worked hard. But I just decided I’d done it. It wasn’t just 14, it was actually 25 years because I had to do 10 years as a candidate fighting two elections. So it was time to move on in life and work in education.”
However, it hasn’t been easy to leave the cut and thrust of politics behind. He joked: “I feel like a crack addict on methadone… because, of course, it’s been so much of my life. But it was time to stop.”
The reaction to his decision reflected his reputation as a committed and hard-working constituency MP as well as skills, apprenticeships and higher education minister.
The toxicity of social media and the abuse all politicians seem to attract had taken its toll on him over the years, but it also provided a heartening flurry of endorsements as he stepped down.
His resignation letter, quoting J R R Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings character Gandalf, went viral.
“I was really touched because you don’t always get that on social media,” he said. “Usually you wake up in the morning and it’s ‘you’re an x x x or y y y’. And so that was really, really lovely.”
His decision to quit was also influenced by the departures of “dear friends” from the Commons over recent years. They included former Watford MP Richard Harrington, now a life peer, David Burrowes, who represented Enfield Southgate, and former Chancellor and Bromsgrove MP Sajid Javid.
Mr Halfon was a student at Exeter University with Burrowes and Javid, and described them as the sort of people he would still be best friends with even if he was an ice cream salesman.
Labour’s rout of the Tories in July also historically unseated his former constituency office mate, Hertford and Stortford MP Julie Marson, ousted after just one term.
He side-stepped a question about whether she was on his Christmas card list but made the point she was kind to him.
Her defeat was a pattern repeated across Essex and Hertfordshire. In the 2019 General Election, the Tories achieved a clean sweep of all 18 seats in Essex. This year, they held 10, all with significantly reduced majorities, losing five to Labour, two to Reform UK and one to the Liberal Democrats.
In 2019, all but one of Hertfordshire’s then 11 constituencies was Conservative, but in 2024, when the county gained a 12th seat, St Albans’ Daisy Cooper was joined by a second Liberal Democrat and seven Labour MPs, with just three Tories returned to Westminster.
Mr Halfon predicted it could be a decade before that situation is reversed without some fundamental changes.
He said: “We first need to set out our values in a way which is simple for normal people to understand because everyone thinks we’re weird and angry.”
He said the party needed to set out what Conservatives stand for. “We need to restore trust by showing that we’re competent and that we’re not squabbling.
“We must deliver on the things that we say we’re going to do, but not over-promise.
“We’ve got to be the party of social justice, but in a Conservative way.
“In my view, if we don’t get these three things right, we’ll be out for 10 years. We should be listening to the public. They gave us a kicking and we deserved it.”
The first step for his party is the election of a new leader. Until his elimination, Mr Halfon was leaning towards Braintree MP and former Home Secretary James Cleverly after his performance at the Conservative Party conference, but now the choice is between North West Essex MP and former Business and Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch and Newark MP Robert Jenrick.
He said: “I only have one vote now, which is as an ordinary member. I haven’t completely decided yet who I’m going to support.”
Badenoch is said to be a favourite with the party’s grass roots. Mr Halfon said: “I think she’s impressive in many ways. I think that she’s clearly got some charisma. But James was probably closest to my political views… in the middle.”
Could he ever be tempted back to the fray? Once again he quotes Gandalf – his time is over. For now, he can sit back and judge Labour’s first months in charge.
Cutting the winter fuel allowance as a universal payment to all pensioners was, he said, a mistake, as was accepting donations for clothes and spectacles.
He added: “And they’re being very tin-eared about all the freebies because, you know, they campaigned as Oliver Cromwell and they’ve basically become Cavaliers.”
Mr Halfon was also unimpressed that Labour has paused plans for a new hospital for Harlow, pending a review. During the General Election campaign, Wes Streeting, now the Health Secretary, promised the project was safe.
He said the Conservatives’ failure to build a replacement for the Princess Alexandra – after delays caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, spiralling costs and land purchase issues – was probably his biggest regret as an MP.
He was bitter about Labour’s U-turn and adamant that then Chancellor Jeremy Hunt and Health Secretary Steve Barclay had given him cast-iron assurances the scheme was going ahead.
“The thing that upsets me is that they [Labour] called me a liar when we had the money, we had the commitment,” said Mr Halfon. “That went on for years calling me a liar.
“And then they come and pledge a new hospital. And the first thing that happens after the election is they say there might not be a new hospital after all. There’s going to be a review. Whatever happens, we need that new hospital.”
He also wants Labour to follow the Americans’ lead and stand with Israel. Mr Halfon is a proud Jew and his father lives in Israel.
He said: “In my view, what Israel has done to Hezbollah, we should be thanking Israel because this is a global terrorist group that has carried out terrorist atrocities against not just Israelis, but people from all over the world.
“And the sad thing is, before October 7 happened, Israel was just about to sign an agreement with Saudi Arabia, and it could have brought peace. The reason why it was stopped was because Iran doesn’t want that to happen.”
Mr Halfon wanted the Prime Minister to be “much stronger” and feared Labour was “pandering” to Israel’s opponents because the party “lost seats in certain areas of the country”.
He has kinder words for Jacqui Smith, the new minister of state for skills.
He said: “I want Labour to succeed. I especially want them to succeed in education and skills. And I think Jacqui Smith is very impressive. Whether I agree with everything or not, it makes me happy they’ve appointed a big hitter.”
He said he was ready to work with her on education and skills “because, to me, that’s not an ideological issue”.
In between two stints as an education minister, he chaired the House of Commons Education Select Committee, from July 2017 to October 2022.
As MP, he visited Harlow College on average once a month and still describes it as his favourite hobby. He was instrumental in founding its satellite, Stansted Airport College, and clearly relishes his appointment as chair of its advisory board.
That passion for learning, which was his lynchpin in Parliament, is fundamental to other roles he will soon be able to reveal. They include working as a social mobility advisor to a university, an ambassadorial role for an apprentice provider, education consultancies, working with a green skills group and supporting a charity that promotes business.
He hoped his new politics-lite life would also give him more time for hobbies such as enjoying the countryside with his wife Vanda, using his Cineworld season ticket, diving back into his collection of Tolkien books and enjoying Oxonmoot, the Tolkien Society’s annual convention.
The Harlow constituency now includes the Hallingburys, Hatfield Heath and Hatfield Broad Oak as well as the Epping Forest district wards of Hastingwood, Matching and Sheering Village, Lower Nazeing, Lower Sheering and Roydon.
