Following the shock elimination of James Cleverly, who led the Conservatives Leadership Election race comfortably just 24 hours before, all eyes have now turned to finalists Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick. The final weeks of the Conservative Party leadership election are now coming to a close ahead of the members’ ballot, with results released on 2nd November.
But in the midst of intense scrutiny on the two finalists, other parties are looking on with both glee and worry. With the recent General Election having broken all manner of electoral records for Labour, the Liberal Democrats and Reform UK, how do these other parties feel about the leadership election?
Labour: A less threatening, more unpredictable Conservative Party
Electoral gurus tend to agree: elections are won from the centre. When Starmer brought the party away from Corbyn’s leadership and towards the centre and opinion polls reacted in Labour’s favour, worry began to set in Conservative Party HQ. Now that the centre-right, unifying Cleverly has been eliminated (alongside the other centrist candidate Tom Tugendhat, who was defeated 24 hours earlier), a sigh of relief will be heard around Labour Party HQ.
But whilst the Conservative Party’s expected move to the right might make them less of an electoral threat, that is not necessarily a cause for celebration. Both Badenoch and Jenrick have welcomed the use of culture wars to create wedge issues and divide society. Whether on LGBT+ rights or immigration, the Labour Party should not underestimate the Conservatives’ willingness to use divisive language for political gain.
With media who are often happy to report on scandal and controversy, Labour should be less threatened by a knockout blow from a Conservative Party not ready to govern, but should be weary of death by 100 cuts (pun intended).
Liberal Democrats: Pop the Champagne, it’s Time to Replace the Conservatives
You may think that a sixfold increase in MPs, and becoming the biggest third party ever in Parliament would be the height of happiness for the Liberal Democrats in 2024. You may be wrong. As written by Layla Moran on Twitter/X: “the real winners of the Tory leadership contest are the @LibDems”.
Historically seen as a centrist party, the Liberal Democrats are eager to break through the electoral ceiling by attracting voters disillusioned with the two major parties. They succeeded on this front in the 2024 General Election attracting many Conservative voters disappointed with the then-Government. With both finalists being from the right of the party, and 42% of members supporting a merger with Reform UK, disillusionment in centrist Tory groups will only grow… .
But whilst the headline news may be good, there is work to be done from the Liberal Democrats. As voters forget about the chaos of the 2019-2024 Conservative Government and increasingly read of negative stories on Labour, they may turn to the Conservatives as the Opposition party. Liberal Democrats will need to show voters that they are the credible opposition to Labour, and that centrist former-Conservative voters can trust Liberal Democrats with their vote.
Reform UK: The Fight of the Right or Unite of the Right?
In 2013, Nigel Farage met with leader of the right-wing, populist Canadian Party, Reform. This may look like another trip to North America for a politician often interested by politics across the Atlantic, but Farage himself spoke of the opportunity to learn lessons from the Reform Party’s journey in the 1990s. In that decade, Reform had managed to reduce the Conservatives to two seats in the Federal Parliament, become the official opposition, and by 2003, merge with the Conservatives to deliver a party that would eventually form the Government (with the Prime Minister having been a former Reform Leader).
The parallels to Farage’s Reform UK Party are striking. Damaging the Conservative party across the country to almost remove them as the official opposition and achieving the third largest vote share by percentage, the ball is now in Reform UK’s court. Do they opt to explore a merger and replicate Canada in the 1990s/2000s? Or, following increasingly pugnacious rhetoric between Conservative leaders and Nigel Farage, do Reform UK look to go one further and wipe out the Conservatives altogether, from the right?
Whilst immensely powerful media strategies from Reform UK figureheads may generate optimism, the party still faces big obstacles. In 2024, candidate vetting was found to be a big issue for the party, with a number of candidates having to be condemned or even suspended. Furthermore, whilst the Reform UK ‘air war’ may be strong, they lack the Conservatives’ electoral machine, preventing them from mounting credible campaigns across Britain’s constituencies.
Final Thought:
In the next month and beyond, Conservatives will be introspective as they look at who they are and how they should move forward. But with growing multipolarity in Parliament, with different parties able to pick different types of Conservative voters, the true focus may need to be less on the Conservatives themselves, and more on which party can exploit the crumbling party the most. Can Labour hold preserve its landslide victory into the next General Election? Can the Liberal Democrats replace the Conservatives as the Official Opposition? Can Reform UK win the fight on the right?
Hear more from Chamber UK by singing up to our newsletter here.