Hok Yin Stephen Chiu, is a PhD Candidate and Associate Tutor at the Brain and Behaviour Laboratory of the University of Warwick, and serves as Co-Chair of the Solihull and Meriden Conservative Policy Forum.
Every commentator has their own pet theory for why the Tories lost, and how it will recover by adopting their own personal obsessions and pet-projects. Reverting to business-as-usual, the Party may soon forget it only scraped over a double-digit number of seats by the skin of their teeth.
But here’s the bare fact: armed with 600 paper candidates and a broadly online campaign, a resurgent Reform Party almost sank the Tories down to Zero Seats.
For the unacquainted, Zero Seats was the dissident Right’s latest thought experiment, popularised by Dr Neema Parvini of the Centre of Heterodox Social Science.
Its premise was that a reset of both democracy and the Right could only occur after an epoch-defining calamity: what Parvini called the ‘Labour-600’, where Labour would face an entire opposition of with zero to fifty seats. Parvini hypothesised that a Labour-600 result would expose the current political system as farcical, and break the status-quo ‘uniparty’ mentality.
This didn’t happen. But the result was sufficiently severe that Tories should be in no doubt that the survival of their ancient party is now on the line. Conservatives need to learn hard lessons, and learn them fast. The root causes of last week’s calamity must be confronted, and addressed.
Any list of those would be a very long one. But this is my top three.
Style over Substance
Much attention, both inside the party and amongst the commentariat, has focused on the increasingly vicious ideological disputes supposedly raging between different Tory factions, and the apparently dramatic changes in the character of British Conservatism over the past 14 years.
This is a red herring. The electorate who vote Conservative have done so for the same core reasons, unchanged over decades. In one sentence, the Tories promise lower immigration, safer streets, and for housing, education, and healthcare provision to keep up with natural demand, all leading to serious economic productivity.
This fundamental contract between the Party and the people has not changed, whether it was 2019 ‘Get Brexit Done’ Johnson, who won the Red Wall, or 2015 ‘muscular liberal’ Cameron, who crushed the Liberal Democrats.
What has changed is the widening gap between rhetoric and reality. It is this growing chasm, clearly noticed by the public that threatens to consume the Party.
Yet the obsession with moving left or right afflicts many serious figures. Andy Street, for example, has warned against moving to the Right, telling Sky News the way forward was “in the middle-ground” rooted in “moderate and inclusive Conservatism” and citing David Cameron as an example of a “moderate man”. Others have cited the former Mayor as a template for the national party to follow.
There’s no denying Street’s impressive record, missing out on a third term by a thousand votes in an election where he hugely overperformed his Party.
But the ideological takeaway is spurious. The good people of the West Midlands supported Andy primarily because he exceeded his house building targets, job creation targets, and built several new Metro lines, not because he projected a One-Nation image. Delivery, not ideology, is the real difference between Street and our recent run of prime ministers.
(We should also beware historical revisionism. Cameron was elected on a platform of cutting public spending and reducing immigration to the “tens of thousands”; the latter objective is often dismissed as far-right today. His vibe was different, not his promises.)
Factionalism
This fixation on image over delivery riddles the factional infighting too (indeed it could hardly be otherwise, given the relative dearth of policy thinking). Too often, ‘strategic communication’ seems less about communicating a strategy than substituting communication for strategy.
Doubtless each of the leadership contenders will try invest much effort in cultivating their preferred image (although we may at least get fewer Thatcher tribute acts so overt as Liz Truss’s or Penny Mordaunt’s). To the extent that the press pays attention, personal spats and assessments of optics will likely crowd out detailed analysis.
Members must not be taken in. The real differences between these candidates are more likely to be in personality and PR strategy, than in policy and delivery. The past 14 years have been an object lesson in how leaders with very different images can be much less different on policy, and fail in the same ways.
If the Party is to thrive post-2024, the membership must demand more than just good vibes from their preferred faction. The faults of the last fourteen years is not due to one faction being up, or another being down, but that all major players in the Party have failed. What unites the records of our recent leaders is as important, at least, as what separates them.
The grassroots must sift the wheat from the chaff; it is not enough for our leaders to just write well in the Telegraph, present well on GB News, or speak well at Conference. Unless the Party demonstrates that it can deliver on its traditional platform, beyond signalling, then it will not recover.
Idleness
Running up to the general election, Tory activists saw many true-blue areas collapse in support, continuing the pattern of the local elections.
Whilst unsurprising, as much of the country normally swings with the national picture, there is another factor: when formerly safe areas that have voted Conservative for a generation are changing their minds, it is more likely due to local idleness than the poor national picture.
By that, I mean whether campaigners, councillors, and MPs have put in the miles, knocking on doors and canvassing every household within their patch. Research from the University of Kent (Townsley, 2018) suggests that in the lead-up to an election, leafleting and canvassing improves turnout by 4.9 per cent – and this figure is likely much higher if there is sustained local effort, building loyalty for a local candidate.
Activists will have experienced campaigning in Tory-held areas and been aghast at data showing some doors not canvassed once in the last fourteen years. Even in 2024, some places bucked the national trend. Without fail, these were areas where a dynamic candidate with local name recognition had put in the yards.
Iain Duncan Smith held on in Chingford (with additional help from a split left-wing vote); Simon Clarke almost defended Middlesborough South. Earlier in the year, Ben Houchen secured his third term as Mayor of the Tees Valley. In my patch, Solihull Conservatives have made council gains despite the woeful national picture.
Our party’s campaigning machinery needs rebuilding from the ground up. Whatever our different views about high policy, success for the Right will be about hard work and community presence as much as national policies and delivery. Neither can be neglected; there is no short-cut in better comms.
Correcting Course
The big question is whether the Party machine can overcome this deeply-seated culture of style-over-substance, factionalism, and idleness, and what this means in the near-term?
The path to victory requires doing two things: establishing credibility, and creating an excitement factor. Being credible and trusted no longer means just having the right policies, but actual delivery – or, in opposition, plausibility.
After all, the 2010 and subsequent manifestos were very clear on lower immigration, less crime, more houses, and higher economic productivity. The public voted for it, and didn’t get it. Can the Party demonstrate this will be different next time?
Credibility may win back some swing and stay-at-home voters. But to win, the Tories need an excitement factor. This is something Reform possesses thanks to Nigel Farage, at least amongst certain groups of voters. Unless the Conservatives can present a compelling vision of Britain tomorrow – one of growth, security, and opportunity – it will struggle to win the next generation.
Any meaningful fix needs to be both top-down and bottom-up. The party leadership must assess the past fourteen years with clarity, act on grassroots feedback, energise the membership, and communicate to the public the turning of a new leaf. Those responsible for the rot should be thanked for their service, and moved on.
Equally, the grassroots must punish any leadership candidate who has been part of the problem, and step up to play an active role in rebuilding the Party both nationally and in their local area.
The task is daunting – but not impossible. Gaetano Mosca, the Italian political scientist, posited in his ‘elite theory that an organised minority will always triumph over a disorganised majority. A relatively small group of able and motivated people could turn around this Party’s fortunes, and perhaps the country’s too.
All hinges on whether or not such an organised minority exists, or whether the Conservative Party is now in truth what it has so often been dismissed as before: a disorganised relic, waiting to be swept away by whatever comes next.
Hok Yin Stephen Chiu, is a PhD Candidate and Associate Tutor at the Brain and Behaviour Laboratory of the University of Warwick, and serves as Co-Chair of the Solihull and Meriden Conservative Policy Forum.
Every commentator has their own pet theory for why the Tories lost, and how it will recover by adopting their own personal obsessions and pet-projects. Reverting to business-as-usual, the Party may soon forget it only scraped over a double-digit number of seats by the skin of their teeth.
But here’s the bare fact: armed with 600 paper candidates and a broadly online campaign, a resurgent Reform Party almost sank the Tories down to Zero Seats.
For the unacquainted, Zero Seats was the dissident Right’s latest thought experiment, popularised by Dr Neema Parvini of the Centre of Heterodox Social Science.
Its premise was that a reset of both democracy and the Right could only occur after an epoch-defining calamity: what Parvini called the ‘Labour-600’, where Labour would face an entire opposition of with zero to fifty seats. Parvini hypothesised that a Labour-600 result would expose the current political system as farcical, and break the status-quo ‘uniparty’ mentality.
This didn’t happen. But the result was sufficiently severe that Tories should be in no doubt that the survival of their ancient party is now on the line. Conservatives need to learn hard lessons, and learn them fast. The root causes of last week’s calamity must be confronted, and addressed.
Any list of those would be a very long one. But this is my top three.
Style over Substance
Much attention, both inside the party and amongst the commentariat, has focused on the increasingly vicious ideological disputes supposedly raging between different Tory factions, and the apparently dramatic changes in the character of British Conservatism over the past 14 years.
This is a red herring. The electorate who vote Conservative have done so for the same core reasons, unchanged over decades. In one sentence, the Tories promise lower immigration, safer streets, and for housing, education, and healthcare provision to keep up with natural demand, all leading to serious economic productivity.
This fundamental contract between the Party and the people has not changed, whether it was 2019 ‘Get Brexit Done’ Johnson, who won the Red Wall, or 2015 ‘muscular liberal’ Cameron, who crushed the Liberal Democrats.
What has changed is the widening gap between rhetoric and reality. It is this growing chasm, clearly noticed by the public that threatens to consume the Party.
Yet the obsession with moving left or right afflicts many serious figures. Andy Street, for example, has warned against moving to the Right, telling Sky News the way forward was “in the middle-ground” rooted in “moderate and inclusive Conservatism” and citing David Cameron as an example of a “moderate man”. Others have cited the former Mayor as a template for the national party to follow.
There’s no denying Street’s impressive record, missing out on a third term by a thousand votes in an election where he hugely overperformed his Party.
But the ideological takeaway is spurious. The good people of the West Midlands supported Andy primarily because he exceeded his house building targets, job creation targets, and built several new Metro lines, not because he projected a One-Nation image. Delivery, not ideology, is the real difference between Street and our recent run of prime ministers.
(We should also beware historical revisionism. Cameron was elected on a platform of cutting public spending and reducing immigration to the “tens of thousands”; the latter objective is often dismissed as far-right today. His vibe was different, not his promises.)
Factionalism
This fixation on image over delivery riddles the factional infighting too (indeed it could hardly be otherwise, given the relative dearth of policy thinking). Too often, ‘strategic communication’ seems less about communicating a strategy than substituting communication for strategy.
Doubtless each of the leadership contenders will try invest much effort in cultivating their preferred image (although we may at least get fewer Thatcher tribute acts so overt as Liz Truss’s or Penny Mordaunt’s). To the extent that the press pays attention, personal spats and assessments of optics will likely crowd out detailed analysis.
Members must not be taken in. The real differences between these candidates are more likely to be in personality and PR strategy, than in policy and delivery. The past 14 years have been an object lesson in how leaders with very different images can be much less different on policy, and fail in the same ways.
If the Party is to thrive post-2024, the membership must demand more than just good vibes from their preferred faction. The faults of the last fourteen years is not due to one faction being up, or another being down, but that all major players in the Party have failed. What unites the records of our recent leaders is as important, at least, as what separates them.
The grassroots must sift the wheat from the chaff; it is not enough for our leaders to just write well in the Telegraph, present well on GB News, or speak well at Conference. Unless the Party demonstrates that it can deliver on its traditional platform, beyond signalling, then it will not recover.
Idleness
Running up to the general election, Tory activists saw many true-blue areas collapse in support, continuing the pattern of the local elections.
Whilst unsurprising, as much of the country normally swings with the national picture, there is another factor: when formerly safe areas that have voted Conservative for a generation are changing their minds, it is more likely due to local idleness than the poor national picture.
By that, I mean whether campaigners, councillors, and MPs have put in the miles, knocking on doors and canvassing every household within their patch. Research from the University of Kent (Townsley, 2018) suggests that in the lead-up to an election, leafleting and canvassing improves turnout by 4.9 per cent – and this figure is likely much higher if there is sustained local effort, building loyalty for a local candidate.
Activists will have experienced campaigning in Tory-held areas and been aghast at data showing some doors not canvassed once in the last fourteen years. Even in 2024, some places bucked the national trend. Without fail, these were areas where a dynamic candidate with local name recognition had put in the yards.
Iain Duncan Smith held on in Chingford (with additional help from a split left-wing vote); Simon Clarke almost defended Middlesborough South. Earlier in the year, Ben Houchen secured his third term as Mayor of the Tees Valley. In my patch, Solihull Conservatives have made council gains despite the woeful national picture.
Our party’s campaigning machinery needs rebuilding from the ground up. Whatever our different views about high policy, success for the Right will be about hard work and community presence as much as national policies and delivery. Neither can be neglected; there is no short-cut in better comms.
Correcting Course
The big question is whether the Party machine can overcome this deeply-seated culture of style-over-substance, factionalism, and idleness, and what this means in the near-term?
The path to victory requires doing two things: establishing credibility, and creating an excitement factor. Being credible and trusted no longer means just having the right policies, but actual delivery – or, in opposition, plausibility.
After all, the 2010 and subsequent manifestos were very clear on lower immigration, less crime, more houses, and higher economic productivity. The public voted for it, and didn’t get it. Can the Party demonstrate this will be different next time?
Credibility may win back some swing and stay-at-home voters. But to win, the Tories need an excitement factor. This is something Reform possesses thanks to Nigel Farage, at least amongst certain groups of voters. Unless the Conservatives can present a compelling vision of Britain tomorrow – one of growth, security, and opportunity – it will struggle to win the next generation.
Any meaningful fix needs to be both top-down and bottom-up. The party leadership must assess the past fourteen years with clarity, act on grassroots feedback, energise the membership, and communicate to the public the turning of a new leaf. Those responsible for the rot should be thanked for their service, and moved on.
Equally, the grassroots must punish any leadership candidate who has been part of the problem, and step up to play an active role in rebuilding the Party both nationally and in their local area.
The task is daunting – but not impossible. Gaetano Mosca, the Italian political scientist, posited in his ‘elite theory that an organised minority will always triumph over a disorganised majority. A relatively small group of able and motivated people could turn around this Party’s fortunes, and perhaps the country’s too.
All hinges on whether or not such an organised minority exists, or whether the Conservative Party is now in truth what it has so often been dismissed as before: a disorganised relic, waiting to be swept away by whatever comes next.