The end of the Conservative party now looks inevitable

The truth is that voters only care about good policies, not meaningless invocations of long-dead institutions

Daily Telegraph 

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This summer marks 25 years for me professionally poring over polling and focus group data. Events dictate popular opinion, so I have learned to be wary of predictions, preferring to set out plausible scenarios.

Here is one such scenario now: we might be witnessing the last days of the Conservative Party.

Senior Conservatives have grown up with the party, enjoyed recent landslides and the trappings of Government. They assume the party has strong roots, power, and relevance to voters.

Reality check: nobody across Britain cares about the Conservative Party. Most voters know nothing of its history, never meet any activists, and could not name more than a small handful of current Tory MPs. The party is an irrelevance, culturally and institutionally.  

The Conservatives have not plunged in the polls to the low 20s because voters are consciously “punishing” them, or “sending them a message”. They have simply moved on, deciding to cast their votes for other parties.  

This is why the Conservatives’ “strategy” – apologising for past mistakes, explaining principles and consulting on policy – is so ludicrously misjudged. When nobody cares about you, this process is inward-looking and self-indulgent.

Reform have overtaken the Conservatives in the polls simply because they are saying important, clear things on important issues – above all, border control. Reform are currently polling in the high 20s now, while the Tories are in the low 20s. This might be a temporary switch in their relative positions, but could mark a permanent shift.

The fact the Conservatives cannot see the threat from Reform is worrying, but also casts doubt on their ability to save themselves.

These doubts are growing. Just last week, Priti Patel, one of the party’s leading figures, used an interview with The Sun’s Harry Cole to forcefully defend the last Conservative Government’s record on immigration. In one of the most extraordinary interviews of recent times, she suggested voters should applaud the party’s record here.

Nigel Farage is already saying this shows the party is a party of mass migration. Others will argue the party has become effectively another variation of the Labour Party, taken over by a soft-left ideology. Neither are correct.

The truth is, the modern Conservative Party does not seem to believe anymore in those things that always secured it 30-odd points in the polls – and regular election landslides. This means no genuine belief in border control, but neither in lower taxes, lower public spending, sound money, or public service reform.

In the face of this abandonment of their historic policy ground, of course there is an opportunity for Reform. Voters care about policies, not archaic institutions. Reform can and should go after the Conservatives’ traditional voters by stealing Tory policies.

While Reform are being encouraged to maximise their vote share at all costs, pivoting to the left on the economy and right on social issues, this would be a mistake. As a committed Thatcherite, Nigel Farage would be in an untenable position – and Reform need him.

A more credible move would be to retain their hardline policy on immigration, and then to adapt the Conservative Party manifestos of 2015 and 2019 as their own.

Both policy platforms were right-wing enough to retain the support of traditional Tories, while attracting vast numbers of working-class and lower middle-class voters from the English Midlands and North.

This would be a simple job and, when facing a Conservative Party which is rudderless, it might be more than enough to begin the process of Reform replacing the Conservatives. This is a plausible scenario; at this point, nothing more.