The UK Conservative Party faces a leadership crisis as the new Labour government struggles with low approval ratings. Populist leader Nigel Farage threatens the Tory base, complicating their strategy to reclaim votes from Labour, Liberal Democrats, and Greens. With the far-right rising across Europe, the Tories risk further alienation. Kemi Badenoch, the frontrunner, advocates for a party overhaul, but lacks specifics, while her rivals also struggle to address key voter concerns.
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By Martin Ivens
First, the good news for the next leader of the UK’s benighted Conservative party — the popularity of the new Labour government is tanking. ___STEADY_PAYWALL___ After a few weeks in power, less than a quarter of those interviewed approve of Labour’s performance, according to a YouGov opinion poll. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s personal ratings are down to minus 16. What’s more, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves is threatening to raise taxes in her budget at the end of October.
The bad news is that few people are listening to any of the five rivals for the Tory crown. That’s as it should be. The party has only been mostly talking to itself for more than a decade and has been riven by feuding for most of that time. In further bad news, the only performer on the right who gets a hearing isn’t a Conservative in the traditional sense, but Nigel Farage, leader of the populist Reform party. Farage, Donald Trump’s buddy, has greater name recognition than all five Tory candidates combined.
Although Reform fields only five MPs in the House of Commons – thanks to the UK’s winner-takes-all electoral system – its large vote share in three- or four-party races decimated the ranks of Tory MPs at the last election. The Conservatives have a classic “fire or frying pan” dilemma: Play Farage at his own game by moving to the right or tack to the center to recover votes lost to the Liberal Democrats, Labour, the Greens and abstentions. Either way, the Tories stand to alienate a large slice of voters.
The Conservative predicament is hardly unique. Across Europe, center-right parties have been trying and failing to solve the same electoral puzzle. Mass migration, “woke” social issues and the “green socialism” of net zero fuel the fires of discontent everywhere. On the continent, however, electoral systems based on proportional representation have delivered solid populist blocs in national parliaments. Britain is increasingly an outlier in keeping more extreme forms of right-wingery outside its parliamentary structures.
Last Sunday in Germany, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) left the Christian Democratic Union trailing 10 points behind in the state of Thuringia and came close to snatching the lead in far larger Saxony. On Sept. 22, elections in Brandenburg, closer to the Social Democrats’ Berlin heartland, will likely see a far-right surge too.
In France, the once-mighty center-right descendant of the party founded by Charles de Gaulle has been whittled down to electoral irrelevance by the populist National Rally (RN) and its National Front forerunner, led by members of the Le Pen family. President Emmanuel Macron has gobbled up the center — on Thursday he appointed a Gaullist stalwart, Michel Barnier, as prime minister. In Italy, the post-fascist Fratelli d’Italia, led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, is in pole position in a right-wing coalition and, as for Austria, watch this space: The Freedom Party is gobbling up the center-right vote.
All these conventional conservative parties have tried to outbid the populists for the anti-immigrant vote and all too often their intended audience has preferred the real thing, not the pale imitation.
That has lessons for a new Conservative leader setting out their stall in the UK. According to a series of opinion polls and focus groups conducted by More in Common for the activist ConservativeHome website, the voters demand “trust, relatability, and competence.” This analysis rings true — in recent years the Conservatives have been fractious, incompetent and, to borrow Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz’s charge against his Republican opponents, a bit “weird.” Public contrition for 14 years of low growth and a miserable record on productivity and investment is also required.
That’s not to say Conservatives can or should ignore migration, but unless they convince the voters they are offering competence across the board they will be locked out of power. The Tories have become unpopular populists, guilty of making promises on migration they haven’t kept but shunned by polite society for being the “nasty party.”
Middle-class professionals, university graduates and the under 30s – a tiny 8% of whom voted Conservative in July – have deserted the Tories. That can’t be healthy. Yet 40 years ago, more than 50% of teachers voted for Margaret Thatcher, the scourge of union power. In a school staff room today who would dare admit to such heresy? Apart from the lords of high finance, the urban elites shun the Tories.
The consequences for the official opposition could be dire. Twenty and 30-year olds are no longer reliably turning right in their 40s and 50s. As they settle down in middle age, these cohorts struggle to afford a house because Tory NIMBYs have killed off planning reform and subsidized demand.
Which of the Tory candidates, then, has (in Tom Wolfe’s phrasing) the right stuff? The party favorite, Kemi Badenoch, correctly demands a fundamental rethink but is vague on the specifics. Badenoch is also the only candidate not banging the drum on migration despite being identified with the right of the party. A punchy debater, she would take the fight to Farage as well as Starmer. Her problem is the perception that she never takes off the gloves — and that bruised MPs also need someone to offer them sympathy and uplift.
Robert Jenrick, a slick, deathbed convert to right-wing conservatism who led the field in the first round of voting among Conservative MPs, is vocal in his opposition to migration and the interference of the European Court of Human Rights. He scores less well with the public on trust and relatability.
That leaves Tom Tugendhat, an ex-army officer whose leadership qualities appeal to all voters and is popular with metropolitan elites, if not right-wingers. He at least is addressing the UK’s productivity puzzle. James Cleverly scores well for relatability and Mel Stride for competence. The scuttlebutt is that Tory MPs, a notoriously devious selectorate, may gang up behind one of these three to exclude the Badenoch, currently in second place, from the final runoff decided by ordinary party members.
The candidates have so far scratched the surface of the party’s problems. The populist alternative isn’t the answer.
Read also:
- Farage’s Reform UK overtakes Sunak’s Tories in poll
- The Tories have waged the worst election campaign in living memory: Martin Ivens
- Sunak’s Tories stumble in election, facing Labour resurgence and Reform threat
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