“Gradually, then suddenly”. That was Ernest Hemingway’s formulation for how one goes bankrupt.
Our party faces a similar tipping point – not only because our coffers are empty, but because we face an end to 300-odd years as one of Britain’s major political parties. If you don’t realise how bad things really are, you either haven’t been paying attention or are wilfully blind. Over the next half a year, we face replacement, irrelevance, and extinction. We are in the endgame.
As James Frayne highlights, voters have already stopped listening to us: “nobody across Britain cares about the Conservative Party”. They are moving en masse to Reform UK because they, unlike us, have something to say about the issues that matter – primarily, border control – that does not involve making excuses for our appalling record and suggesting we might have something to say by 2027.
We find it very satisfying that we can trace our history back to the Exclusion Crisis. But we have no divine right to exist. To be blunt, the public does not give a sh*t about us, our history, or our mealy-mouthed excuses. They wanted higher living standards, reduced immigration, and lower NHS waiting lists. We treated them like idiots; they are now Nigel Farage’s for the taking.
This is not 1975. Margaret Thatcher did not become leader after our party’s worst-ever defeat. She did not find herself third-place in the polls behind another right-wing party within her first hundred days. She did not have the misfortune to lead in an age of social media and 24-hour news. She did not lead a party accustomed to regicide; she was not our party’s sixth leader in eight years.
As necessary as Stepping Stones 2 will be for a future government of the right, and as sympathetic as I am to Alex Burghart’s desire to cosplay as Keith Joseph, we do not have the luxury of two years for self-indulgent introspection. We barely have two months. If the rot is not stopped within weeks, the point of no return will be crossed. Will the last Tory to leave please turn out the lights?
Evidence? Last week, Reform UK staged a lavish, £1 million-raising bash, where several ex-Tory donors paid £25,000 a pop to make plans with Nigel. This week, we are so cash-strapped that reports suggest we will have to move out of Matthew Parker Street, since we can’t afford the lease. Another victim of the housing crisis; a potent symbol of a party on the skids.
In the past three months, Reform have overtaken us in the opinion polls and members. They now hope to do the same in donations. Elon Musk’s megabucks may look more distant, but a few more Mayfair shindigs will see Farage in the pink ahead of local elections. Even as Reform laments the cancellation of half of this year’s contest, they still have the chance to push us into third.
If the direction of travel of the opinion polls continues, our ratings will by then have dipped below 20 per cent. We will be in Liz Truss territory. If Farage has pulled out a consistent four- or five-point lead that will be near-impossible to overhaul. The trickle of voter, member, and donor defections will become a flood. A Lord will go. Then an MP. Then another. Then…
By the middle of the year, it will become clear, if it isn’t already, that real contest is between Morgan McCummings and Nigel Farage, and that we have been squeezed out. We will be competing with the Lib Dems and SNP to be the largest minor party in 2029. Our role model will not be Thatcher and Joseph, but Ed Davey – pratting about on Tik Tok, not preparing for government.
What those MPs who haven’t yet followed Farage’s siren song by this point choose to do is for them to decide. But reality cannot be fooled. Some might prefer to stick their fingers in their ears, but that won’t win back an electorate that hates us or make Reform’s existential threat disappear. If CCHQ staff aren’t familiar with the film Downfall, I suggest they give it a watch.
Not all of this is Kemi Badenoch’s fault. She inherited a party in a dire state, less than six months after our worst-ever defeat. As our Deputy Editor has explained, the party’s institutional, campaigning, and social weakness is long-standing. But the buck stops with her. She knew time was short, and that she had to make an immediate impact. That she has failed to do so is on her.
Lambasting CCHQ staff for their campaigning and fundraising failures and threatening them with the sack if they do not shape up is not the best way to suggest that all is well. It is especially tone-deaf when reports suggest she has turned up to donor events late, left swiftly, and forgotten to ask for any money. Malicious? Perhaps. But that is the game we play. Prove your critics wrong.
Physician, heal thyself. Her performances at PMQs have underwhelmed. She is outshone on social media by Farage and Rupert Lowe. Her personal approval ratings are going in the wrong direction. CCHQ struggles to campaign when she fails to provide anything to campaign on. She does not seem to have the urgency required of a party leader fighting to save the party she loves.
As grim as the situation is, there is still time to turn it around. Today’s new policy on indefinite leave to remain – doubling the time required to have been lived in the UK to apply, and restricting qualification to “net contributors” – is welcome, and provides Shadow Ministers with something to point to when asked whether they agree with Priti Patel’s assessment of her handiwork.
But it should have been announced two months ago, when this policy was first touted. That would have seized the initiative, and – combined with the package of measures suggested in the excellent Centre for Policy Studies paper which one hopes Badenoch has got around to reading – would have provided a clear set of positions on this vital issue. But better late than never.
Hopefully, this is the turning point, not the tipping point. After teething troubles in the first hundred days, Badenoch might use the period between now and the locals to take a proactive approach to policy announcements, engage with those voters peeling off to Reform, and prove that the Conservative Party does have a reason to continue to exist. The defections will slow; the polls will improve.
That is the hope. But as I come to the end of three informative years at ConservativeHome, I can say that one thing this job has not taught me is optimism.