We haven’t had many opinion polls since the General Election. Apparently, that’s because some of the main pollsters have been busy scratching their chins working out what they got wrong. Labour ended up ten points ahead of the Conservatives in the election result. The final polls had a Labour lead of nearly twice that – 19 per cent on Savanta, 18 per cent on Survation, 20 per cent on Opinium, 18 per cent on Ipsos, 19 per cent on Redfield and Wilton, 17 per cent on YouGov…Most embarrassing for them.
But there was a poll from More in Common, published on Friday, which suggests a Labour lead of four. It is no surprise that Labour’s popularity has fallen – there is no need to list the likely reasons. But while Labour have fallen back the Conservatives have not advanced. The gains have gone to other parties – including Reform UK who are up three points on 18 per cent. That still leaves the Conservatives in second place. But could Reform UK overtake us?
Might they already have done so, with regards to Party membership? In the 2019 leadership election we saw Boris Johnson defeat Jeremy Hunt by 92,153 votes to 46,656. That was a 87 per cent turnout. So the Conservative Party membership was just over 159,000. We don’t know what the figure is now but there are suggestions it is much lower. Daniel Hannan suggested perhaps 90,000 in his column on Wednesday. Zia Yusuf, the Chairman of Reform UK, claimed in an interview in The Spectator, last week, that his Party had 77,000 members and that it is rising fast. They are establishing a proper constitution and branch structure – with serious efforts to train their activists and contest large numbers of seats in future council elections.
The lengthy Conservative leadership has been a constraint to His Majesty’s Opposition. Rishi Sunak has been criticised for being low-profile and equivocal. But he hardly has the authority to make policy pronouncements, nor would he be thanked if he did. There is also the question of to what extent the Conservative Party should defend, or repudiate, the record of the last Conservative Government. For instance, it is one thing to lament the huge increases in state spending and taxation as regrettable. But were they “necessary” – due to the pandemic and the invasion of Ukraine? Or could we and should we have presided over a smaller state despite these pressures? Margaret Thatcher was pretty clear that the Heath Government had taken the wrong course – even though she had served in it.
There were certainly achievements we can be proud of from our time in Government from 2010 to this year – the improvement in school standards being an obvious example. But in many ways, the country is more socialist than it was under Gordon Brown. The Quangos are more powerful than ever. Ministers would shrug helplessly as enterprise was crushed by ever more regulation and wasteful spending. But we were not helpless. It was a choice. The spending could have been cut, the regulations repealed, the Quangos closed, Acknowledging that fundamental failing is a necessary start to the considerable challenge of restoring credibility.
The leadership contenders have been resistant to specify policies – preferring to articulate the principles they stand for. Robert Jenrick has made clear that we should withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights, Tom Tugendhat wants to withdraw from bits of it. Kemi Badenoch regards the Net Zero targets as a folly. James Cleverly calls for defence spending to be increased to three per cent of GDP. But they are all seeking unity. They don’t want to alienate supporters from different wings on the Party. The downside is that by not having set out their policies in advance they don’t have a mandate for them – thus unity is harder to achieve for whoever wins.
All this is understandable. The argument is that having nearly four months to decide on the new leader allows plenty of thought and scrutiny and for the choice upheld rather than undermined. We will have our new leader on November 2nd. It’s just that until then not only are the Government getting a bit of a free run but so is Reform UK.
This week we heard about the Government declaring war on landlords – thus driving more of them away and leaving tenants worse off too. But the Conservatives had the same general idea. What do the Conservatives think now?
We have had prisoners released earlier because there isn’t enough space. Reform UK want the 10,435 foreign nationals in prison deported. What do the Conservatives reckon about that one?
The Government’s decided to suspend some arms exports to Israel. Some Conservatives were naturally angry. But Andrew Mitchell, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, gave a feeble response.
A recent tribunal ruled that Next, the high street retailer, had underpaid its predominantly female retail staff compared with its mostly male warehouse workers. Do the Conservatives believe the equalities laws need to be curtailed if they are being interpreted in this extraordinary way? Would repealing Harriet Harman’s 2010 Equality Act be enough?
Each day brings more such controversies. Nigel Farage can send a tweet or pop up on GB News with some trenchant response. For the Conservatives it’s all a bit awkward.
So the next Conservative leader should take Reform UK seriously. Abandoning Conservative policies have left a greater space for a rival Conservative Party than hitherto. However, Reform UK is a symptom rather than a cause. Just as important are all those staunch Conservatives who abstained. So traducing Reform UK will not work – David Cameron’s comments about its predecessor party UKIP consisting of “fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists” should not be replicated. Or even Michael Howard’s milder rebuke that they were “cranks and gadflies”. But nor would desperate sucking up to them pleading with them to stand down candidates in some clandestine meeting on a smoke free pub be likely to do the trick. Trying to undermine or to placate Reform UK misses the point. It ignores the signal that is being sent.
Defections to Reform UK are really just giving the Conservatives a message that they would need to grasp anyway. Coherent, unapologetic Conservative principles should be adopted and applied rigorously to the issues the country faces. If that crusade is strong enough then disillusioned Conservatives will be able to tell that it is sincere and return to the fold. Others can be converted to – notably younger voters looking for a Party than really believes in wider home ownership.
Reform UK have stumbled in on territory that the Conservatives have surrendered. There is nothing to stop the Conservatives reclaiming it should they wish to do so. They should not make the mistake of taking it for granted again.