Sam Collins is Head of Public Affairs for Popular Conservatism.
The latest survey of more than 450 active Conservative Party members conducted by Popular Conservatism confirms our respondents’ preference for Robert Jenrick, followed, fairly closely by Kemi Badenoch.
With Priti Patel now out of the running, Jenrick leads Badenoch by eight per cent (38 per cent to 30 per cent) with a fifth of respondents still undecided. The rest, as they say in racing, are nowhere.
So far, so expected.
But what is perhaps more thought-provoking are the responses to the crucial question – what criteria do our respondents apply when judging how they would vote, not for whom.
Our panel was asked to pick the top five things on which they would be evaluating the candidates. They were offered a range of possible responses ranging from “They will do what they say”, to “They have the best chance of winning the next general election”, to a range of policy areas where they might agree with the candidate (such as migration and net zero). You can see the full results here.
The wallflower at this particular ball, was that old political favourite: ‘unity’.
Considering how many references there have been from every candidate to the sacred nature of party unity, this is distinctly odd. Only a pitiful eight per cent of respondents selected establishing unity among Conservative MPs as one of their top five criteria.
Compare that to the 55 per cent who were worried about whether the candidate was: ‘A true blue conservative whose values match mine’. This certainly does not reflect a flirtation amongst our panellists with Reform – only 15 per cent will base their vote on who they think is best to deal with Reform UK.
The massed ranks of Conservative Party MPs have traditionally resembled the disciplined army at Blenheim or Waterloo. In the last Parliament they were more like cats in a sack.So, we need to unpick our respondents’ views a little: don’t they care about unity?
Clearly unity is good. It is rare that the public votes for a divided party. But there are two types of unity.
There is unity of purpose, where a group of like-minded people come together to achieve the same goal using the same methods. This unity of purpose (not just seeking government for its own sake or to deny another party the baubles of office) was at the heart of Disraeli’s approach when he helped create the modern Conservative Party’s electoral machine.
Ideas – love of country, self-reliance and limited government interference in our economic and personal decisions – have historically been central to the Conservative message, whether in government or opposition. This type of unity allows all to march in the same direction and undertake real change when in government.
But it requires honest agreement and real effort to convince the electorate of the efficacy of our ideas. When we do not make that case well enough, then hello Opposition.
Then there is the unity of coalitions, which we often see in countries with proportional representation. Here, parties jettison ideas to hold ideologically-incoherent groups together. These coalitions may allow its member parties to cling on to power, but allow little real reform to take place and can quickly fall apart.
Popular Conservatism believes the future of the Conservative Party must lie in the first type of unity: a coherent set of policies that appeal to the electorate, delivered by a party which voters can support, safe in the knowledge that they will get the sort of policies they expect. And it seems that party members agree with us.
There will be some commentators who will deride this. They argue that thirteen years out of government as Tony Blair carried all before him – at least until David Cameron (barely) took power from a weak and tired Gordon Brown – shows there is no point in ideology, that no-one cares about values.
Not so.
It has only been five weeks since our catastrophic defeat and Labour has certainly not been slow to prove their shortcomings in office.
The conveyor belt of policy disasters keeps on rolling: higher taxes, restrictions on personal freedom, growth-killing employment law, and ill-thought-out green policies that will destroy our energy security. It seems the only winners under Labour are those who drive a train.
Yet the Leader of the Opposition, and most of the Shadow Cabinet, have been conspicuous by their absence in the face of these Labour policies.
At the same time, the Conservative Party is struggling to make a convincing case. After all, every one of the would-be leaders of the Conservative Party have sat around a cabinet table endorsing similar policies at one point or another during our time in power.
Yes, Labour will take the tax burden higher – from the highest level on record and the highest since 1945, no less. But we were hardly apostles of fiscal rectitude, having got the tax level there in the first place.
Yes, Labour’s nannying plans for smoking are stupid, but no more so than Rishi Sunak’s legacy tobacco policy, which was so clueless that the one other country where such a plan was introduced (New Zealand, under the far-left Jacinda Ardern) reversed it as soon as the right came back to power.
Yes, Labour’s net zero policy is unaffordable, but no more than our frankly pretty hopeless efforts since we waved the policy through in 2019.
There has been a sense of ideological drift within the Conservative Party. The last 14 years saw us committed to controlling government budgets and then revelling in the highest amount of NHS spending in its history. We slashed Corporation Tax to encourage growth, then raised it again. We introduced fracking, then abandoned it.
There is a sense amongst voters and party members alike that if you vote Conservative you cannot be sure what you will get. Unlike Ronseal, our party no longer does what it says on the tin.
Our survey says clearly this must change. The next Conservative leader needs to stop this drift. We need to once again be a party that represents real Conservative policies. We must be genuinely united – united by principle, policy and delivery. That is the path leading to a return to power.
Sam Collins is Head of Public Affairs for Popular Conservatism.
The latest survey of more than 450 active Conservative Party members conducted by Popular Conservatism confirms our respondents’ preference for Robert Jenrick, followed, fairly closely by Kemi Badenoch.
With Priti Patel now out of the running, Jenrick leads Badenoch by eight per cent (38 per cent to 30 per cent) with a fifth of respondents still undecided. The rest, as they say in racing, are nowhere.
So far, so expected.
But what is perhaps more thought-provoking are the responses to the crucial question – what criteria do our respondents apply when judging how they would vote, not for whom.
Our panel was asked to pick the top five things on which they would be evaluating the candidates. They were offered a range of possible responses ranging from “They will do what they say”, to “They have the best chance of winning the next general election”, to a range of policy areas where they might agree with the candidate (such as migration and net zero). You can see the full results here.
The wallflower at this particular ball, was that old political favourite: ‘unity’.
Considering how many references there have been from every candidate to the sacred nature of party unity, this is distinctly odd. Only a pitiful eight per cent of respondents selected establishing unity among Conservative MPs as one of their top five criteria.
Compare that to the 55 per cent who were worried about whether the candidate was: ‘A true blue conservative whose values match mine’. This certainly does not reflect a flirtation amongst our panellists with Reform – only 15 per cent will base their vote on who they think is best to deal with Reform UK.
The massed ranks of Conservative Party MPs have traditionally resembled the disciplined army at Blenheim or Waterloo. In the last Parliament they were more like cats in a sack.So, we need to unpick our respondents’ views a little: don’t they care about unity?
Clearly unity is good. It is rare that the public votes for a divided party. But there are two types of unity.
There is unity of purpose, where a group of like-minded people come together to achieve the same goal using the same methods. This unity of purpose (not just seeking government for its own sake or to deny another party the baubles of office) was at the heart of Disraeli’s approach when he helped create the modern Conservative Party’s electoral machine.
Ideas – love of country, self-reliance and limited government interference in our economic and personal decisions – have historically been central to the Conservative message, whether in government or opposition. This type of unity allows all to march in the same direction and undertake real change when in government.
But it requires honest agreement and real effort to convince the electorate of the efficacy of our ideas. When we do not make that case well enough, then hello Opposition.
Then there is the unity of coalitions, which we often see in countries with proportional representation. Here, parties jettison ideas to hold ideologically-incoherent groups together. These coalitions may allow its member parties to cling on to power, but allow little real reform to take place and can quickly fall apart.
Popular Conservatism believes the future of the Conservative Party must lie in the first type of unity: a coherent set of policies that appeal to the electorate, delivered by a party which voters can support, safe in the knowledge that they will get the sort of policies they expect. And it seems that party members agree with us.
There will be some commentators who will deride this. They argue that thirteen years out of government as Tony Blair carried all before him – at least until David Cameron (barely) took power from a weak and tired Gordon Brown – shows there is no point in ideology, that no-one cares about values.
Not so.
It has only been five weeks since our catastrophic defeat and Labour has certainly not been slow to prove their shortcomings in office.
The conveyor belt of policy disasters keeps on rolling: higher taxes, restrictions on personal freedom, growth-killing employment law, and ill-thought-out green policies that will destroy our energy security. It seems the only winners under Labour are those who drive a train.
Yet the Leader of the Opposition, and most of the Shadow Cabinet, have been conspicuous by their absence in the face of these Labour policies.
At the same time, the Conservative Party is struggling to make a convincing case. After all, every one of the would-be leaders of the Conservative Party have sat around a cabinet table endorsing similar policies at one point or another during our time in power.
Yes, Labour will take the tax burden higher – from the highest level on record and the highest since 1945, no less. But we were hardly apostles of fiscal rectitude, having got the tax level there in the first place.
Yes, Labour’s nannying plans for smoking are stupid, but no more so than Rishi Sunak’s legacy tobacco policy, which was so clueless that the one other country where such a plan was introduced (New Zealand, under the far-left Jacinda Ardern) reversed it as soon as the right came back to power.
Yes, Labour’s net zero policy is unaffordable, but no more than our frankly pretty hopeless efforts since we waved the policy through in 2019.
There has been a sense of ideological drift within the Conservative Party. The last 14 years saw us committed to controlling government budgets and then revelling in the highest amount of NHS spending in its history. We slashed Corporation Tax to encourage growth, then raised it again. We introduced fracking, then abandoned it.
There is a sense amongst voters and party members alike that if you vote Conservative you cannot be sure what you will get. Unlike Ronseal, our party no longer does what it says on the tin.
Our survey says clearly this must change. The next Conservative leader needs to stop this drift. We need to once again be a party that represents real Conservative policies. We must be genuinely united – united by principle, policy and delivery. That is the path leading to a return to power.