What Will Happen To The Conservative Party After It Loses?

Conservative MPs know their party is headed for defeat - possibly a very heavy one - on 4 July, and their minds are already turning to what the party should do in the aftermath of that defeat.

The Omens Are Not Good

History tells us that parties nearly always initially draw the wrong lessons from defeat (think Labour in 1979, the Conservatives in 1997 and Labour again in 2010); it normally takes one or two more defeats before they finally get the message. And it may be even harder for the Conservatives this time - they are caught in an electoral pincer with Labour and the Liberal Democrats to their left and Reform to their right, and as a result have no good strategic options.

Braverman's 'Unite the Right' Strategy

In an interview with The Times on Monday, former Home Secretary Suella Braverman set out her preferred strategy: she argued that there was “not much difference” between Reform and Conservative policies and that the two should therefore merge because “we shouldn’t be divided on this side of the political spectrum”. Expect others such as Priti Patel and Jacob Rees-Mogg to adopt this ‘unite the right’ mantra.

There are two problems with such a strategy however: first, there is evidence that some Reform voters wouldn’t vote Conservative even if there were no Reform; and second, some current Conservative voters would stop voting for the party if Nigel Farage had a leadership role. In other words, you can’t just add the Conservative and Reform shares of the vote and assume that’s what a merged party would get - the Conservatives would do better with Farage on board, but unless Labour seriously messes up they would probably also be condemning themselves to perpetual opposition.

But Braverman’s critics have to acknowledge that she has a point: merging with Reform may not be the answer, but it will be very hard for the Conservatives to get more than 40% of the vote while Reform is on its right flank. The right is currently divided in exactly the same way the left was in the 1980s after the formation of the SDP - and that division on the left allowed Margaret Thatcher to win two landslide victories on just over 42% of the vote.

What Is Farage Up To?

If the Conservatives are unsure how to respond to the huge hole Boris Johnson and Liz Truss have left them in (and Rishi Sunak has proved incapable of extricating them from), Farage has a plan - indeed he has three of them. He is not stupid: he knows full well that Reform is unlikely to win many seats (though he may win in Clacton), and that the effect of his intervention will be to increase the size of Labour’s victory. His objectives is to destroy the Conservative Party and for Reform to take its place, as happened in Canada in 1993. But if that doesn’t work, he has two other options: a leader like Braverman might open the gates and let him in; or, if Sunak is succeeded by someone who is hostile to him, he can use his support among the shrunken Conservative grassroots to try to mount a hostile takeover.

What is not clear is whether his decision to stand in this election and take over the leadership of Reform from Richard Tice will help or hinder these plans. Thus far, it has clearly boosted Reform in the polls and if that is sustained through to polling day it will mean more Conservative MPs losing their seats. But if all he does is wound it deeper rather than destroying it, he may find that many of those Conservatives who do get elected are deeply hostile to him. The right of the party have spent years deluding themselves that Farage is an ally - Patel famously danced with him at last year’s Conservative Party Conference. Now he has made it clear that he is trying to destroy them (“Priti Patel represents a party that let 2.4 million people come into our country in the last two ears - sorry Priti, you haven’t protested enough”). Will they forgive him?

Why Does Any of This Matter?

At first glance, the internal debate within the Conservative Party after the election may not feel that important - after all, the party may well be out of power for a generation. But it matters because it will determine what type of opposition Labour face - and given Keir Starmer’s caution, that is likely to have some impact on the policies Labour pursues. A Conservative Party that turns its back on Farage and tries to re-establish itself on the centre-right will present a very different challenge to a populist right Conservative Party led, or heavily influenced by, Farage.

The Trump Factor

There is one final factor to bear in mind: what happens in the US in November. If Donald Trump wins, the right will argue that the Conservatives should ape his strategy; if he loses to an historically weak Democrat candidate, that argument will be much harder to make.

Brexit destroyed the Conservative Party’s coalition. It thought it had found a new one in 2019, but maybe that was only true for as long as Jeremy Corbyn was leader of the Labour Party. It will have to decide after the election whether to keep trying with the new coalition or go back to its old one.

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