In the wake of their most devastating electoral defeat in nearly two centuries, the Conservative Party finds itself on the precipice of an identity crisis. A recent YouGov poll, conducted on the 29th of August has laid bare this reckoning, revealing that a staggering 63% of respondents are “unclear what the party stands for”, the highest rate since the survey began over 5 years ago. In the midst of an ongoing leadership contest, this lack of ideological cohesion threatens Britain’s longest-running political institution.
The Crumbing Pillars of Conservatism
The foundations that once defined the Conservative party, namely law and order, economic stability and controlled immigration, have suffered considerable damage after 14 years in office. The general election saw Conservatives defections en masse across the political spectrum, with significant numbers of voters flocking to the Liberal Democrats, Labour, and crucially Reform UK, which eroded majorities in many Tory safe seats which as a result fell into Labour hands.
Polling by the electoral calculus amongst Conservative defectors in the electorate, who previously voted Tory in the 2019 election, reveal the party’s failure to manage the NHS, lack of credibility, and economic mismanagement as reasons for their abandonment. By far the highest motivation, however, was the party’s immigration record, with 44% of total defections citing the previous government’s ‘failure to control immigration’.
The Reform Threat
Achieving 14.3% of the total vote in July, Reform UK captured large numbers of Tory voters, swaying many safe seats towards Labour, and in the cases of Boston and Skegness and 4 other constituencies, took the seats outright.
Despite consistent attempts from Sunak to portray the Conservatives as the party committed to lowering immigration, exemplified by the Rwanda policy, net migration reaching an all-time high of 745,000 last year eroded any remaining credibility of this image. After five successive general election promises from the Tories to lower immigration, an evident failure to materialise this promise caused serious electoral harm to the party, and hence its identity.
The scale of this failure cannot be downplayed. Recent polling by YouGov shows that immigration is now in voters’ top five most important priority.
Conservative dismissals of the strong Reform UK performance as a ‘protest vote’ are losing credibility as recent polling shows the party having a nearly 5% rise in predicted vote shares since the general election, the only party to gain percentage points. With current predictions of Reform at 18% and the Conservatives at 22% – the damage that the party’s immigration record has inflicted upon itself has been catastrophic. So significant is this damage that calls for a merger between the Tories and Reform UK have reached the forefront of the agenda in the leadership race.
(To find Chamber UK’s guide to the 6 MPs running to leader the Conservative Party, click here).
Labour’s Centre-Ground Offensive
It goes without saying that Starmer’s rebranding of the Labour party towards the centre has deeply wounded the Conservative party’s identity too.
The PM’s tough stance on the recent far-right riots has bolsteredpublic perception of Labour as a party committed to law and order. This, coupled with a strong emphasis during the general election campaign, has paid off, with 28% of voters now viewing Labour as the party of law and order, an all-time high, compared to only 17% choosing the Conservatives.
Thus, Starmer’s renewed attention to the law and order, his response to the riots, and numerous scandals rocking the previous government, namely Partygate, have seemingly robbed the Conservatives as the beholders of this title.
Secondly, previously perceived as the party of economic stability, the Tories were deeply wounded by their record on the cost of living crisis, inflation, and Liz Truss’ catastrophic October mini-budget.
Conservative economic mismanagement made up a substantial portion of Starmer’s electoral campaign, who attempted to portray Labour as the party of economic stability and pragmatism. Personified by the PM’s rose garden speech last week (see our article), Labour rhetoric is still heavily focused on repairing the damage done by the Conservatives, focusing on the ‘reckless’ economic mismanagement.
Ever since the October ‘mini-budget’, polls show the Tories have lost their position as the party trusted by the public to handle the economy. 53% of Conservative voters blame Liz Truss for the election defeat, showing the party itself is painfully aware of its sub-par economic record.
Tory weaknesses have been strategically seized by Starmer, and as a result, the party has lost dominance on two core components of their identity they traditionally were perceived to champion by voters.
Final Thought: What Now?
With Labour currently sitting on its second biggest majority ever, and Reform UK still surging in the polls, the Conservative party finds itself in a situation like no other, one that is existential.
The party itself stands at a crossroads. Either pander to the Reform defectors, shifting to the right to establish itself as a firmly anti-immigration party, potentially welcoming in figures such as Nigel Farage. Or try and woo back those on the centre-right that defected to Labour and the Lib Dems in the last election, by running on a moderate policy of economic stability and shunning the party of any hard right-wing affiliations.
Both directions risk alienating a substantial portion of their traditional supporters. Perhaps the electoral space that the conservatives once occupied is now too vast for them, and with increasing political polarisation, the Tories must decide whether to recommit to its traditional values, embrace a new identity further to the right, or attempt to straddle an increasingly wide ideological divide. Either way, for the time being, the picture for the Tories seems increasingly bleak, a party not just out of power, but robbed of its identity.
This article was written by Chamber UK’s features writer, Oscar Newman.