Conservatives are doing the right thing by offering sensible, small government, pro-business policies that can deliver growth and strong borders. It may feel unrewarding, but it is the only credible approach.
Conservative voters are sick of voting for a party that “talks Right, but governs Left”. In order, to get our voters back from Reform we should lay out a reasoned and comprehensive manifesto of distinctly Conservative policies. Time is running out.
That ultimately depends upon three key hurdles – The first relates to the structure of the party. The second is the question of a functional shadow cabinet. The third is the cohesive policy. Currently those three variables still need to be resolved.
Both within sections of the Conservative Party and in much of the commentary on it, the distinction between word and deed has collapsed.
Time and again, myself and others who want to build the party into a proper institution – which would more effectively support the leader’s own ambitions – have been driven out.
Away from social media, newspaper quotes and the TV studios, the team around Farage know it is a question they need to answer.
At present, it speaks for a particular section of the electorate whilst leaving many voters deeply ambivalent about its mainstream status. As long as this persists, there will be a hard ceiling on its support.
To someone like me – who is somewhat interested in the survival of the Conservative Party – the answer some are offering to solve this country’s decades-long rightwards surge is staggering.
In just a few weeks, Nigel Farage and co have so toxified their brand that the cordon sanitaire between themselves and the Tories is the strongest it has been in over a decade.
He doesn’t have a good history of playing well with others, and even Reform’s consciously anti-democratic corporate structure would not be proof against people with their own mandates, platforms, and staffing budgets.
Reform UK is reuniting a coalition that in its first phase hurt Labour at least to some significant degree, but who swung behind the Conservatives in 2019 and is deserting them now.
The battle to explain the looming catastrophe will open with an orgy of blame-shifting. But left and right each have their share of responsibility, and neither will be fit for power until they face up to their role in how we got here.
Focusing on winning over a party that is free to call for an immediate freeze in immigration, and lower taxes, and protecting any spending voters care about, promises only to waste precious time in a retreat into magical thinking.
Henry Hill Hill pours cold water on Arron Banks’ claims that Reform UK might secure lots of Conservative defectors.
Democracy cannot be gamed. We stand on our principles with integrity or we shouldn’t stand at all. We say what we think not what we think we should say. It’s all for one and one for all. The voters will make their choices.