Neville Lishman worked the Campaigning Department at CCHQ from 1995 – 2025
Reform is slipping in the polls and three decades at the coalface of fighting marginal seats across the North tells me they are beatable in seats where their victory had come to seem inevitable.
The only thing that will clinch Reform’s hold onto much of the Red Wall is if we concede it to them. When you read about an unnamed Shadow Minister proclaiming that Red Wall Voters to be ‘gone’ it is disheartening to those of us on the ground up here in places like Carlisle. Strategies proclaiming ‘Waitrose Woman’ or young urban HENRYs to be key to the party’s future speak not to a party seeking a majority but one set on consolidating its position in wealthier Southern seats.
Such a narrowing of our focus and with it our potential path to victory doesn’t fit with those of us who are out talking to voters in seats which defaulted to Labour in 2024 but now seem primed for Reform. I don’t think for one moment Kemi shares this view, but the lack of belief in our ability to win in what we now refer to in the Red Wall reminds me of the last time such an assumption was prevalent.
The year is 2007 and Carlisle has just selected its candidate for the next General Election. Having lost every General Election here since 1959, it is understandable that as far as target seats go, it is a long shot and not needed in the victory column to sweep David Cameron into Downing Street.
Targeting back then was rudimentary. Local canvass data overlayed with Mosaic codes to establish a constituency target voter list. When this was mapped out onto Carlisle, it identified that much of the constituency, traditionally ignored, as “Labour heartlands”, were actually in play. What we saw on the ground was that target voters plus existing canvass data gave us a narrow path to victory. Conversations with these hitherto overlooked voters identified a decent chunk who were receptive to us. Large numbers worked in manual trades and just wanted to get on in life. They were aspirational and didn’t look to the state for a handout.
While we fell short of a majority in 2010, Carlisle which was seen at best as a nice to have seat and more likely one which was assumed to be just out of reach became one of our most significant victories of the night. John Stevenson broke our 60 year drought and kicked out one of the first bricks in what would one day become known as the Red Wall.
It is no surprise that Carlisle lad, Clark Vasey, came up with Blue Collar Conservatism back in 2012 and together with Esther McVey he and the group have been making the case that working class voters should be at the heart of the Conservative agenda ever since. Now with Broxbourne MP, Lewis Cocking as its new Parliamentary Chairman, it is doing so with a renewed sense of urgency. It is challenging the assumption that working class voters are out of reach for the Conservatives. The only difference now is that the likes of our friend the unnamed Shadow Minister are leaving them to Reform rather than Labour.
Whether some conservatives like it or not the potential base for the right is more working class and in the age of fractured realignment if we are to consolidate the right that means winning back the trust of Reform voters. With common sense Kemi as our leader and a Reform party which struggles to articulate anything coherent beyond immigration, we can do this.
Over the summer I have been back on the doors in Carlisle, whilst there is undoubtably a long way to go, voters have stopped slamming the doors and are starting to give us a hearing again. Many of the self-identifying Reform voters, a lot of whom were in that dataset of two decades ago often tell you, ‘I like Kemi but….’ The door is ajar; it is time we gave them an offer that will bust the door wide open and get beyond the – ‘but’. Then the game is on, the coalition of voters can be built and those Blue Collar voters who were with us for four of the last five general elections can feel comfortable in voting once again for the Conservatives.
We have to win back trust on immigration, this is how we neutralise Reform, but once we can get beyond that our priority must be growth that it felt and not just measured. That the money in their wage packet will go that little bit further allowing them to treat their kids more often, go on that holiday they promised themselves and or that their grandkids will be able to find a job. We are the only serious alternative to Burnham’s recipe for dependency, we just need to get back out and talk to them.
Every one of us needs to get back out into those seats some of us have become convinced we cannot win. Don’t concede this ground to Reform. Go and have those “I like Kemi but…” conversations with voters. Get our Shadow Ministers out of Westminster and into the regions. In this day and age it’s easy to think a video clip will do, but you learn a lot touring factories in the North East or farms in Lancashire.
Kemi has said she is now speaking directly to Reform voters. So let’s treat everyone we speak to as someone who was once most likely with us in 2019, who shares similar values and similar aspirations. These voters are not gone, they just feel let down. The stakes at the next election have never been higher, so let’s earn their trust and together we can beat Burnham.
Neville Lishman worked the Campaigning Department at CCHQ from 1995 – 2025
Reform is slipping in the polls and three decades at the coalface of fighting marginal seats across the North tells me they are beatable in seats where their victory had come to seem inevitable.
The only thing that will clinch Reform’s hold onto much of the Red Wall is if we concede it to them. When you read about an unnamed Shadow Minister proclaiming that Red Wall Voters to be ‘gone’ it is disheartening to those of us on the ground up here in places like Carlisle. Strategies proclaiming ‘Waitrose Woman’ or young urban HENRYs to be key to the party’s future speak not to a party seeking a majority but one set on consolidating its position in wealthier Southern seats.
Such a narrowing of our focus and with it our potential path to victory doesn’t fit with those of us who are out talking to voters in seats which defaulted to Labour in 2024 but now seem primed for Reform. I don’t think for one moment Kemi shares this view, but the lack of belief in our ability to win in what we now refer to in the Red Wall reminds me of the last time such an assumption was prevalent.
The year is 2007 and Carlisle has just selected its candidate for the next General Election. Having lost every General Election here since 1959, it is understandable that as far as target seats go, it is a long shot and not needed in the victory column to sweep David Cameron into Downing Street.
Targeting back then was rudimentary. Local canvass data overlayed with Mosaic codes to establish a constituency target voter list. When this was mapped out onto Carlisle, it identified that much of the constituency, traditionally ignored, as “Labour heartlands”, were actually in play. What we saw on the ground was that target voters plus existing canvass data gave us a narrow path to victory. Conversations with these hitherto overlooked voters identified a decent chunk who were receptive to us. Large numbers worked in manual trades and just wanted to get on in life. They were aspirational and didn’t look to the state for a handout.
While we fell short of a majority in 2010, Carlisle which was seen at best as a nice to have seat and more likely one which was assumed to be just out of reach became one of our most significant victories of the night. John Stevenson broke our 60 year drought and kicked out one of the first bricks in what would one day become known as the Red Wall.
It is no surprise that Carlisle lad, Clark Vasey, came up with Blue Collar Conservatism back in 2012 and together with Esther McVey he and the group have been making the case that working class voters should be at the heart of the Conservative agenda ever since. Now with Broxbourne MP, Lewis Cocking as its new Parliamentary Chairman, it is doing so with a renewed sense of urgency. It is challenging the assumption that working class voters are out of reach for the Conservatives. The only difference now is that the likes of our friend the unnamed Shadow Minister are leaving them to Reform rather than Labour.
Whether some conservatives like it or not the potential base for the right is more working class and in the age of fractured realignment if we are to consolidate the right that means winning back the trust of Reform voters. With common sense Kemi as our leader and a Reform party which struggles to articulate anything coherent beyond immigration, we can do this.
Over the summer I have been back on the doors in Carlisle, whilst there is undoubtably a long way to go, voters have stopped slamming the doors and are starting to give us a hearing again. Many of the self-identifying Reform voters, a lot of whom were in that dataset of two decades ago often tell you, ‘I like Kemi but….’ The door is ajar; it is time we gave them an offer that will bust the door wide open and get beyond the – ‘but’. Then the game is on, the coalition of voters can be built and those Blue Collar voters who were with us for four of the last five general elections can feel comfortable in voting once again for the Conservatives.
We have to win back trust on immigration, this is how we neutralise Reform, but once we can get beyond that our priority must be growth that it felt and not just measured. That the money in their wage packet will go that little bit further allowing them to treat their kids more often, go on that holiday they promised themselves and or that their grandkids will be able to find a job. We are the only serious alternative to Burnham’s recipe for dependency, we just need to get back out and talk to them.
Every one of us needs to get back out into those seats some of us have become convinced we cannot win. Don’t concede this ground to Reform. Go and have those “I like Kemi but…” conversations with voters. Get our Shadow Ministers out of Westminster and into the regions. In this day and age it’s easy to think a video clip will do, but you learn a lot touring factories in the North East or farms in Lancashire.
Kemi has said she is now speaking directly to Reform voters. So let’s treat everyone we speak to as someone who was once most likely with us in 2019, who shares similar values and similar aspirations. These voters are not gone, they just feel let down. The stakes at the next election have never been higher, so let’s earn their trust and together we can beat Burnham.