Sam Collins is Head of Public Affairs for Popular Conservatism
A political realignment can feel a damned, dirty business to those caught up in it. Negotiating one requires both an open mind and a laser-like focus on the national, rather than party, interest. This need for open-mindedness becomes more important (and more painful) if your party is the one seemingly shifting from major to minor party.
That is the position that the Conservatives find ourselves in today. It gives me no pleasure to say it. I fundamentally believe that the Conservative Party – the Party of Thatcher and Disraeli – would be the best vehicle to bring about the change that our country desperately needs. There is also no question in my mind that the Conservative Party is making the running in Westminster holding this dreadful government to account. Kemi has been doing a great job.
But I also have to accept that currently a large part of the electorate, in large swathes of the county, not only disagrees but is not even willing to listen. The alternative King’s Speech put forward last week correctly identified many of the issues that Popular Conservatism has been calling for the next government to address – reforming the bureaucracy, leaving the ECHR and restoring our constitutional structure. Yet this appears to have had little to no impact on the opinion polls.
This seems to be borne out by the recent local elections. Despite our public spin, they could only be classified as ‘less horrific than it could have been’. Yes, we regained Westminster and Wandsworth. Yes, we held Bromley and Harlow. But we also shed some 500 seats, were hammered in Essex, were nowhere in most of the Red Wall and utterly eviscerated in Wales and Scotland.
The Conservative Party needs to come to terms with this reality. This is not to preach hopelessness, nor to suggest we all decamp to one of the other parties on the Right. But in a world of multiparty politics, where every party is sitting at less than 30% of the vote and a few votes could make all the difference, we need to recalibrate both our expectations and our strategy to reflect what we are seeing on the ground.
Fighting everywhere will only help the Left – it was true when the Brexit Party fought against us in Labour-held seats in 2019, and it was true in 2024 when Reform stood against us everywhere. But now the shoe is on the other foot. Galling though it is to admit (though admit it we must) it would be us playing the spoiler if we fight every seat in 2029. We would be risking the well-being of the nation for no electoral benefit.
I am not underestimating how difficult and painful such a recalibration would be to many of our hardworking members, councillors and MPs. Even within PopCon itself – an organisation that specifically includes ‘Uniting the Right’ as one of our key ambitions – our Conservative supporters react with horror to the idea of anything other than our party giving a 100% effort in every mainland British constituency.
Historically, however, this would not be the first time the Conservatives have stood down candidates in order to advance the overall cause of removing the Left from power. The slow-motion implosion of the Liberal Party starting in the 1880’s saw Conservatives routinely pulling candidates from seats held by Liberal Unionists, ‘Coupon’ Liberals or National Liberals. Even National Labour – out and out socialists – benefitted from Conservative largess by us standing aside to defeat the more left wing option.
And it would require both sides to accept it. I am not calling for a unilateral standing down of candidates as Farage did in 2019. But it does not take an electoral sage to see the outlines of where Reform and Conservatives strengths and interests might align.
The Red Wall seats won for the first time in 2017 or 2019 are not going to fall back in to our column in 2029. It would take a greater optimist than me to expect major gains in Wales. But anyone who can read a map and an opinion poll can also see Reform failed to gain any serious momentum in London. And that it was Reform who helped elect three Scottish Nationalists in Aberdeenshire seats where the Conservative candidate was nipping at their heels.
The outlines of a full deal is a discussion for closer to the election. But there are three things the Party, both the leadership and members, must do now.
First, we must cool the rhetoric. Reform might be a long way from having the policy chops or institutional knowledge that the Conservative Party does, but they are not ignorant nor are their voters stupid. Intimating otherwise is both electorally harmful and unnecessarily provocative.
Second, we should offer a stand-down swap in the upcoming by-elections – Makerfield for Aberdeen South. This would allow both sides to see the impact such an agreement could have long before having to face such a proposal on a larger scale at a General Election.
Finally, as Lord Hannan has suggested previously, we should avoid early candidate selection in seats where Reform is likely to be the main opponent to Labour. Once a candidate is selected the roadblocks to a deal increase.
Fundamentally the Conservatives stand for the national interest. The next election must return a right wing government with a large working majority that can carry out the raft of fairly radical policy change that will be needed to get this country back on track (most of which, incidentally, Reform and the Conservatives broadly agree on).
That government will need to do so in the teeth of public, media and civil service pushback that will make that faced by the Coalition over ‘austerity’ seem like a walk in the park. It will hurt like hell, but in the current multi-party world the Conservatives must help do whatever we can to ensure it happens.
Sam Collins is Head of Public Affairs for Popular Conservatism
A political realignment can feel a damned, dirty business to those caught up in it. Negotiating one requires both an open mind and a laser-like focus on the national, rather than party, interest. This need for open-mindedness becomes more important (and more painful) if your party is the one seemingly shifting from major to minor party.
That is the position that the Conservatives find ourselves in today. It gives me no pleasure to say it. I fundamentally believe that the Conservative Party – the Party of Thatcher and Disraeli – would be the best vehicle to bring about the change that our country desperately needs. There is also no question in my mind that the Conservative Party is making the running in Westminster holding this dreadful government to account. Kemi has been doing a great job.
But I also have to accept that currently a large part of the electorate, in large swathes of the county, not only disagrees but is not even willing to listen. The alternative King’s Speech put forward last week correctly identified many of the issues that Popular Conservatism has been calling for the next government to address – reforming the bureaucracy, leaving the ECHR and restoring our constitutional structure. Yet this appears to have had little to no impact on the opinion polls.
This seems to be borne out by the recent local elections. Despite our public spin, they could only be classified as ‘less horrific than it could have been’. Yes, we regained Westminster and Wandsworth. Yes, we held Bromley and Harlow. But we also shed some 500 seats, were hammered in Essex, were nowhere in most of the Red Wall and utterly eviscerated in Wales and Scotland.
The Conservative Party needs to come to terms with this reality. This is not to preach hopelessness, nor to suggest we all decamp to one of the other parties on the Right. But in a world of multiparty politics, where every party is sitting at less than 30% of the vote and a few votes could make all the difference, we need to recalibrate both our expectations and our strategy to reflect what we are seeing on the ground.
Fighting everywhere will only help the Left – it was true when the Brexit Party fought against us in Labour-held seats in 2019, and it was true in 2024 when Reform stood against us everywhere. But now the shoe is on the other foot. Galling though it is to admit (though admit it we must) it would be us playing the spoiler if we fight every seat in 2029. We would be risking the well-being of the nation for no electoral benefit.
I am not underestimating how difficult and painful such a recalibration would be to many of our hardworking members, councillors and MPs. Even within PopCon itself – an organisation that specifically includes ‘Uniting the Right’ as one of our key ambitions – our Conservative supporters react with horror to the idea of anything other than our party giving a 100% effort in every mainland British constituency.
Historically, however, this would not be the first time the Conservatives have stood down candidates in order to advance the overall cause of removing the Left from power. The slow-motion implosion of the Liberal Party starting in the 1880’s saw Conservatives routinely pulling candidates from seats held by Liberal Unionists, ‘Coupon’ Liberals or National Liberals. Even National Labour – out and out socialists – benefitted from Conservative largess by us standing aside to defeat the more left wing option.
And it would require both sides to accept it. I am not calling for a unilateral standing down of candidates as Farage did in 2019. But it does not take an electoral sage to see the outlines of where Reform and Conservatives strengths and interests might align.
The Red Wall seats won for the first time in 2017 or 2019 are not going to fall back in to our column in 2029. It would take a greater optimist than me to expect major gains in Wales. But anyone who can read a map and an opinion poll can also see Reform failed to gain any serious momentum in London. And that it was Reform who helped elect three Scottish Nationalists in Aberdeenshire seats where the Conservative candidate was nipping at their heels.
The outlines of a full deal is a discussion for closer to the election. But there are three things the Party, both the leadership and members, must do now.
First, we must cool the rhetoric. Reform might be a long way from having the policy chops or institutional knowledge that the Conservative Party does, but they are not ignorant nor are their voters stupid. Intimating otherwise is both electorally harmful and unnecessarily provocative.
Second, we should offer a stand-down swap in the upcoming by-elections – Makerfield for Aberdeen South. This would allow both sides to see the impact such an agreement could have long before having to face such a proposal on a larger scale at a General Election.
Finally, as Lord Hannan has suggested previously, we should avoid early candidate selection in seats where Reform is likely to be the main opponent to Labour. Once a candidate is selected the roadblocks to a deal increase.
Fundamentally the Conservatives stand for the national interest. The next election must return a right wing government with a large working majority that can carry out the raft of fairly radical policy change that will be needed to get this country back on track (most of which, incidentally, Reform and the Conservatives broadly agree on).
That government will need to do so in the teeth of public, media and civil service pushback that will make that faced by the Coalition over ‘austerity’ seem like a walk in the park. It will hurt like hell, but in the current multi-party world the Conservatives must help do whatever we can to ensure it happens.