Dr Matthew Francis reflects on the Conservatives' post-election course of action.
The Conservative Party has suffered a historic defeat, surely driven more by their own unpopularity than by the policy offer of the new Labour government.
In the aftermath of that defeat, much of the debate will inevitably focus on where the Tories go next. Given the strong performance of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK – which has finished in second place in approximately one hundred seats, many of which the Conservatives might otherwise have won – and the evidence of voter disillusionment on issues such as immigration, there will doubtless be calls for the party to shift further to the right. But such calls are not necessarily wise.
Even voters who might support tougher policies on immigration are unlikely to support the parties that propose them if they do not trust that those policies will be implemented. Making promises that they cannot keep will only harm the party.
For one thing, the adoption of ever-tougher rhetoric on issues such as immigration is unlikely to persuade voters to return to the Tory fold if it is not underpinned by credible policies. As Amelia Gentleman pointed out in the Guardian this week, the past fifteen years has seen a progressive hardening of Conservative rhetoric and policy on immigration and an increase in legal migration to record levels. The outgoing government’s attempts to address irregular migration have, moreover, visibly failed. Two years on from the initial announcement of the Rwanda asylum plan, the government has yet to resettle a single asylum seeker under the scheme. Even voters who might support tougher policies on immigration are unlikely to support the parties that propose them if they do not trust that those policies will be implemented. Making promises that they cannot keep will only harm the party.
For another, it is not the case that the Conservatives are shedding votes only to Reform. While Nigel Farage’s latest venture evidently represented an attractive destination for disaffected Tories, recent data from Helm / Deltapoll suggested that the party was shedding significant numbers of its 2019 voters to Labour, to the Liberal Democrats, to the Greens, and to simple apathy. That polling echoed an Electoral Calculus analysis from February, which similarly found that many former Conservative voters intended to vote Labour or Liberal Democrat – or, often, to note vote at all – rather than to vote for Reform. While it will be some time before we have the full picture of voter migration between 2019 and 2024, the success of the Lib Dems across the south and south-west and the low turnout would appear to bear out that pre-election analysis.
Moreover, from being won back my promises of a tougher line on matters such as immigration, these groups of ex-Tory voters may be turned off by such a move. That same Helm / Deltapoll analysis of 2019 Conservative voters found that almost half (41%) thought that the party needed to adopt ‘a more centrist approach’ after the election, rather than move to the right. Electoral Calculus found that voters switching to Labour were more concerned with the state of the economy and the NHS than with immigration.
Which is not to say that the Conservatives do not need to respond to Reform. Nigel Farage’s party clearly represents a significant, perhaps existential, threat to the Tories. But the Conservative Party has historically enjoyed such electoral success has in part been a product of its ability to place itself in the middle of the road. They need to be careful not to respond to defeat by heading for the ditch.
Reader in History (Education)
Biographical and contact information for Dr Matthew Francis, Reader in History (Education) in the Department of History at the University of Birmingham.
