January 17, 2024 - 7:00am
Westminster resignations rarely have the impact those falling on their sword hope they will. Rishi Sunak will likely be able to shrug off the loss of Lee Anderson and Brendan Clarke-Smith, and the PPS who followed in their wake. His Rwanda bill has survived the second reading and the internal opposition has not snowballed into a concerted move against him. However, this turmoil points to the Tories’ bigger problem — whatever dim hopes they might have of an electoral recovery cannot be nurtured in this environment.
For more than a year now, the Tories have languished around 20 points behind Labour in the polls. The narrative from Number 10 has been the same throughout: polls narrow, it’s not over, and there could always be a turnaround. That’s all true, but there is no natural phenomenon which shifts public opinion: it depends on what the parties do. The rumble over Rwanda shows that the party is in a bad position to change things.
As the Conservatives try to get into election-fighting shape, the prospects of finding the sort of unity and popularity they need seem slim. There are now about six weeks until the Budget when, once again, the Chancellor will have to balance fiscal realities against Tories clamouring for tax cuts. Expect another chorus of dissent when they are left disappointed. Then, two months after that, voters will take a scythe to Tory councillors in the local elections, prompting more discontent within the party. None of this will make the Party more electable.
Instead, the Tories will continue their messy and public psychodrama. In 2019, this proved cathartic, pushing through the Brexit deadlock to a message they could rally around. No such luck on this occasion. At the same time, this limits Sunak’s ability to get anything done. If his party is pushing back, his legislative and policy options are even more limited as the clock runs down. His chance to make positive impacts becomes much tougher — again hurting the electoral offering.
When this happens, a broader sense starts to spread that Sunak is yesterday’s man. Those who have to deal with the Government will sense more and more that change is coming, and that Sunak won’t have much chance to deliver on what he says. Striking public sector workers, for example, will know they only have to hold out a little longer for a Labour government to talk to. On foreign policy, allies and enemies alike will be aware that change is coming. Dealings with Britain’s government will go into stasis, and it will be Starmer whose ear is sought.
It is by no means impossible for the Tories to turn around their polling deficit. But there must be a plan, rather than just a hope. With the Party fighting itself like this, it is hard to see how that emerges. Division simply compounds the risk of defeat. Indeed, the Tories know this — the constant infighting over Maastricht was one of the things that made the 1997 election so bad for them. The Rwanda rebellion and the ensuing resignations are survivable for Sunak, but the spirit of division will make that fightback harder and harder.
John Oxley is a corporate strategist and political commentator. His Substack is Joxley Writes.
Mr_John_Oxley
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SubscribeMaybe they need to decide on a common purpose and deliver it.
The 2019 Conservative election manifesto springs to mind.
There are those that believe Common Purpose has been the problem rather than the solution.
2019 Manifesto? Including the Net zero and Manchester to Leeds rail link stuff?
To be fair to the Tories (not easy given the lies their leaders told about Brexit dividend etc) Pandemic did create a massive financial hole and made some pledges more difficult to deliver.
On Immigration though they committed to a Points based System and a consequent reduction in low skilled migration. Yet we know it’s the highest ever (and Boats a separate issue). Patel/Braverman will have signed these legal migration numbers off and they and their supporters seem to forget all that whilst fixated about the Boats (important though that is). Fundamentally the deception has been in what we needed to do to reduce reliance on immigrants and the choices required. They continue to deceive. Tories fundamentally stuck on not wanting to be straight with folks.
Deceit is a considered a bigger crime than most politicians realise. I expect the next government will be similar.
Dodos are more common than politicians that didn’t exaggerate the benefits/risks of their Remain/Leave position.
Maybe, and both ways I concur on Brexit. But on the immigration – why aren’t they straight with us about the trade offs? What they frightened of?
I suspect that’s because the benefits of high-volume immigration accrue only to big-business, and the Conservatives are not prepared to admit that they prefer to please their £ sponsors – rather than those who elected them.
Yep I think a bit of that. Also think though they are trapped with implications for health and social care and the cost implications in other sectors. We can certainly reduce our reliance but it’s not easy without other strategic plans that have been lacking.
Most likely because the benefits of ultra high migration are to be found serving the corporate interests, the interests of the propertied class and the politico-identity communities.
This is why the EU referendum went the ‘wrong way.’ That was one man one vote, not about interest groups and their influence on those in office.
Keir Starmer will run into the same brick wall on immigration unless he’s got some very good plan he’s not sharing with us.
Out of interest what do you think those, ‘choices required,’ are. Don’t get me wrong here – I don’t disagree with the point you are making, and I’m not getting at you. Politicians of all parties have not confronted voters with the choices around immigration.
But I never really understand what you are getting at in these comments you yourself make on immigration. Do you want open borders? I don’t think you do, but I don’t recall you ever saying explicitly what choices you would make to get migration down (and for my part I did give you an explicit reply on this question a week or so ago when you asked me).
I think points based systems are a fad that likely create as many problems as they solve, and the Conservatives allowed themselves to be sucked in with a bad idea in the clownish hope it was a quick fix – something sadly too familiar to today’s Conservatives.
It may be that Labour voters are relaxed about 1.2m migration, although Starmer himself has been pretty explicit that he wants immigration down. Maybe you are relaxed about 1.2m, but again I don’t think you are saying that. I suspect that Labour will find immigration much the same as the Conservatives did 15 years ago – something that can and does shoot up the priority list of voters very fast.
But you talk, very reasonably, about politicians not wanting to be straight – perhaps you could share with the group what choices you would make.
We need less net migration SH. It unsettles too many people and creates a sense of unfairness. Labour will ‘get’ that too. However our demographics mean some net migration essential. The issue is how much and how we choose whilst not hamstringing our economy.
I think you then need to look at different economic sectors and understand what we’d need to do differently. Social Care for example – resolve the national issue of how we fund it longer term and build into that a proper career structure and salaries so we are less reliant on low paid care workers who we can’t recruit. As you know we just repeatedly duck this. It’ll cost more but different ways in how we might fund it.
I’d have ID cards too – so you can’t legally work or claim anything without it. Heavy fines/prison for employers using those without ID card. We all know the illegals not captured in the official numbers will be huge. Why are we so reluctant to do what other Countries have done on this issue? It’s absence is a reason so many want to come here.
And if I had a time-machine I’d go back into the Single Market and apply the rules of that existed which we opted not to apply – minimum capital requirements, 3 months of no work and you go home, benefits paid at rate of home country if ever claimed, all jobs advertised locally first and without any allowance to pay a migrant worker less (remove the incentive from employers). The thing was EU workers were younger, didn’t always bring the extended family as could get a cheap quick flight home at w/e, more often returned home later, and better educated and culturally similar. All non EU immigration I’d massively reduce, other than visiting students. We need their money and one of our biggest income streams (and soft power) as a nation.
I must admit, a year ago I would have argued vehemently against the imposition of ID cards. Not so much now.
Yep I too had a different view few years ago. Now, given how much we carry around in our pocket on our smart phone, I’ve changed my mind.
The question before the Conservative Party is not whether they can recover before the next election. They can’t because the electorate made up its mind definitively that they need punishing a couple of years ago and every episode of clownshow incompetence and bickering since then has merely reinforced the public mood.
The question is whether the party has any interest in holding together in any meaningful sense beyond 2024. The omens aren’t good.
Their membership is dying off into non-existence. They are losing support in their previous suburban and provincial strongholds as demographics change. They are culturally-speaking anathema to most voting young people. The victory in 2019 was largely based on aversion to Corbyn and borrowing Red Wall votes on the promise of nailing a successful Brexit. They won’t hang onto those votes. The “Faragist” insurgency, in whatever form it takes, will continue to eat away at them from the political Right.
Even in normal times the likely scale of the next Labour election victory could have taken two electoral cycles for the Conservatives to return to electability. But right now with their natural core voter base disintegrating and them held in such utter contempt, its hard to see what sort of foundation they can even start to rebuild from.
There will always be a party on the British political right, which might still be called the Conservative Party, but the era of near hegemony over British electoral politics is probably over for it in its current form.
A choice between limp centre and limp centre-left is no choice, and that’s what we have now. Heathites always lead the Tories to defeat, and they’ve only themselves to blame for the impending cataclysm. I’m a Thatcherite, so I’ll vote Reform. I didn’t vote for the LibDems, and I’m tired of being governed by them by default.
The country doesn’t want Thatcherism now. A huge portion of the tory core are now dependent on the state (notably no mention of pensions in the “Thatcherite” Reform’s manifesto either) and we’ve run out of state assets to flog at a discount or give away for free.
As Macmillan said of Thatcher, ‘It is very common with inidividuals or states when they run into financial difficulties, to find that they have to sell some of their assets – first the Georgian silver goes, then all that nice furniture.’ Thatcherism was always short-term opportunism combined with financial fecklessness – splurging North Sea oil on fruitless tax cuts that have cemented our position as a second-rate power.
I think you’re right about what the country wants. The problem is it can’t afford it. A sensible party would to work hard weaning us of benefits and debt towards hard work and growth.
Neither can it afford to keep handing tax cuts to the super rich or refrain from windfall taxes on gas companies scoring record profits off the backs of a country in a cost of living crisis, or lining the pockets of landlords with rent subsidies – the UK needs to start serving those who work, not those with wealth.
What impact did Carrie have on this?
She might be useful in helping resurrect them from the grave…
Thanks to the incumbent’s unmitigated awfulness, the London Mayoral election in May is one – the only one – the Tories could actually win this year. One would think that CCHQ would be pulling out all the stops to support their candidate, Susan Hall, but instead … nothing.
It’s almost as if they don’t want to win.
I believe the bigger question – the scary one we all are reluctant to ask is this; can any non progressive political party of the centre/right defy, control and assert its will against the power, self interests and ideologies of the New 30 year Progressive State? Is their failure due to weakness and Fake Toryism? Is it because they became charlatans – a non Tory Woke non Nasty non peo enterprise party which has wholly embraced the Blarite Revolution – its multiculturalism, equality mania, climate obsessions, welfarism?? Or is the reality that the collective force of the giant treacley progresive Blob and the now permanent Regulatory machine was/is took great and powerful? The force of the opposition to the present challenge to the anarchic obsolete International laws on asylum and refugees suggests an all powerful Progressive Bloc buttressed by 20 years of law and a captured state media. So too the way the now partisan Civil Service assassinated the leaders of Brexit. And the fact that the unions (NHS Teachers Rail Civil service) are all Leninist and political in their aims. Has the EU and Blair Revolution so dismantled and diffused the power of the Executive as to make any centre right reformist politics impossible…like an alien virus?? Or do we just need a united strong willed New Tory anti Progressive Party to take the fight to them – for real??