The race to replace Rishi Sunak hasn’t formally started yet and one of the candidates is already in trouble, according to this morning’s papers. Suella Braverman’s campaign has been branded “dead before it has even started” amidst reports that allies such as Danny Kruger are supporting other candidates.
If true, this is perhaps not especially surprising. Whilst there is certainly an audience for a ‘unite the Right’ pitch, the events of the past few weeks have probably shrunk rather than expanded it.
Reform’s abysmal handling of revelations about its candidates toxified the prospect of a shotgun marriage between our parties, and whilst the sense in some quarters that Thursday wasn’t as bad as it could have been could yet lead to dangerous complacency, it does further weaken the case for such radical measures.
Braverman has also not helped her case by savagely attacking the Party ahead of polling day – when members were still out campaigning to return Conservative MPs – and refusing to decisively rule out defecting herself.
Whilst there is definitely space for venting the concerns of former members who have defected, it was always going to be especially important for any candidate trying to sell an especially radical prescription to be clearly doing so from a position of loyalty to the Party, not least because members who’ve quit for pastures teal are not the electorate in a Tory leadership contest.
We shall see whether those reading the Last Rites over Braverman’s leadership prospects have jumped the gun. But even if so, and the prospect of seeking an immediate deal with Nigel Farage has receded, the question of what to do about Reform UK remains.
The next election will be make-or-break on this front. Whilst it won only five seats last week (or six, depending on the exact status of its deal with the TUV in Northern Ireland), Reform came second in 98 more. Like UKIP in 2015, when it had come second in 120 seats, it now stands on the cusp of a serious parliamentary breakthrough.
Should that happen, and the next House of Commons sport a structural split on the Right, then our two parties will probably be on the road to some sort of deal or merger. Not immediately – it took ten years in Canada, and that’s after the Tories were pushed into fifth place – but eventually.
Of course, a fortuitous position isn’t destiny. Farage’s parties have historically been much better at winning representation than using it; there is no guarantee that his latest vehicle will be disciplined or strategically savvy enough to fulfil its potential. But nor can the Conservatives afford to sit back and assume it will fail.
What’s needed is a concerted, coherent, and credible pitch to the bulk of Reform’s voters as voters on the issues which matter most to them, be that crime, immigration, or the economy. Rather than trying to take a short cut by stitching together a bargain with the party they voted for this time, the next leader should put in the work to persuade them to pick us next time – whilst not forgetting that we lost far more seats to Labour and the Liberal Democrats and we need to woo those voters too.
Even if this effort is made, and goes well, the next election might offer a final test. For whilst Reform UK really hurt the Tories on Thursday, its current electoral geography is largely Labour-facing; of the 98 seats where it came second, only nine are held by the Conservatives.
If Labour is looking vulnerable at the next election, there could be plenty of short-term electoral logic in attempting a formal or tacit pincer movement, with the Conservatives and Reform UK carving Sir Keir Starmer’s vast defensive front between them.
Such an approach might well pay off, for that election – but at the long-term cost of bedding in that split, and closing the door forever on any hope of the Tory Party navigating the realignment as the hegemonic party of the British Right.