Obituaries for the Conservative Party have never aged well. In 2005, Geoffrey Wheatcroft published The Strange Death of Tory England on the “likely extinction of what was the most successful political species in Britain”.
It was precisely at this moment that the Tories’ fortunes began to recover. By electing David Cameron, the party demonstrated that it had not lost its capacity for reinvention (the same would later prove true of Boris Johnson’s victory). Remarkably, though their majority proved intermittent, the Tories increased their vote share at four consecutive elections (peaking at 43.6 per cent).
After Labour’s victory last July, there was a strange sense of relief among some Conservatives. Though their party had suffered the worst result in its history, it had defied the most pessimistic forecasts (which suggested it could fall below the Liberal Democrats). Labour had won landslide victories before – in 1945, 1966 and 1997 – and each time the Tories had recovered.
But the question now being asked inside both main parties is whether this time is different. Reform’s rise is troubling for Labour but it is potentially existential for the Conservatives. Several recent polls have put the Tories in third place (with a share as low as 21 per cent). As with Michael Foot’s Labour in the early 1980s, the question is not whether they can return to government – but whether they can survive as the opposition.
To some, Kemi Badenoch’s election as leader looked like another act of reinvention. Though No 10 never feared her, others in Labour did. Badenoch understood how to get noticed, they said, and would pose awkward cultural questions for Starmer’s party. Yet the quip shared by Labour MPs after her election has aged better: “Can we declare this as a gift?”
Badenoch’s approval ratings are not merely poor but dreadful. A new Ipsos survey shows that just 16 per cent of voters have a favourable opinion of her while 46 per cent have an unfavourable one. On every attribute polled – such as “a capable leader”, “in touch with ordinary people”, “pays attention to detail” – Badenoch ranks below Starmer, Nigel Farage and Ed Davey (the only exception being “has a lot of personality”).
Opposition leaders rarely recover from a bad start (Starmer was an unusual exception). What’s certainly true is that you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression. Badenoch has told the world that she doesn’t like sandwiches – voters noticed that – she hasn’t told them that she doesn’t like Liz Truss (merely telling the shadow cabinet that a period of silence would be welcome). She has invested vast amounts of energy in chasing Reform’s tail but has barely acknowledged the existence of the Lib Dems – a party that won dozens of Tory seats at the last election.
The battle that the Conservatives now face – as the next election is framed as a contest between Starmer and Farage – is a simple one: for relevancy. As they confront Reform’s insurgency, the Tories’ next act of reinvention may be an electoral pact or even a merger. But to avert a strange death, they must grasp just how high the stakes now are.
This piece first appeared in the Morning Call newsletter; receive it every morning by subscribing on Substack here
[See also: The Tories go from SW1A to CR0]
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