Conservative Party conference begins this weekend so it is timely to discuss what the future of the world’s oldest political party could be if the polls stay in their current position.
First, a small amount of scene setting. Kemi Badenoch’s political strategy right now is to gin up the party’s fiscal conservatism with the hopes there will be some sort of financial crisis in the next four years which will allow them to win on a platform of Credibility, as Reform and Labour both have high spending platforms.
I do not think this will work, in part because the Tories opposed the winter fuel cut - but also because Reform’s defence, that we can afford to spend more if we deport people, is broadly in line with what most of their voters believe. Apart from anything, a sovereign debt crisis may not occur in the next four years. You can’t just assume that Mel ‘ZeroHedge’ Stride’s thunderous prophecies will come to fruition within this electoral cycle.
With that said, it is not impossible that a recession will throw events into the air. A new leader, especially Boris, could shift the numbers. Labour attacks on Farage, particularly on his appearances on Russia Today and previous foreign policy positions *could* put some voters off. Tactical voting against Reform could also lead to left-wingers propping up some Conservative MPs - at which point the Tories could form a coalition with Reform.
These are all events which could mean the Tory Party avoids becoming a minority interest group and remains a national political party.
But for the sake of argument, let’s assume Micawber is wrong, and nothing does come up, and the Tories fall to fourth place in 2029. We will work off the assumption that J’accuse’s favourite pollster Luke ‘The Nuke’ Tryl’s latest MRP model, shown below, is broadly correct - on the grounds that it is likely to be a conservative estimate of Reform’s success.
Reform: 373 seats (96 majority)
Labour: 90 seats
Liberal Democrats: 69 seats
Conservative: 41 seats
There much to discuss here, particularly ‘London as a Labour city’ which I’m sure will be a source of many merry japes in the ‘30s, but the main takeaway is that the Tories will be reduced to a posh rump of home counties seats and prosperous northern rural areas. It will permanently lose the mantle of a ‘national party’ which can win general elections and will be competing with the Lib Dems to be a third party, almost a direct parallel to the fate of the Liberal Party after the rise of Labour. Pragmatic Indians will keep a couple of Bob Blackmans and Shivani Rajas in the Commons, but this will amount to very little Parliamentary influence.
But that isn’t the full picture. The Conservative Party will still have two assets regardless of the 2029 outcome. There will still be around 285 Tory peers in the House of Lords (subject to the passing of the Hereditary Peers bill, which also introduces an age cap). There will be a few defections, but most of these individuals will be perfectly happy to retain the residual institutional prestige of the Conservatives without being associated with a ‘chaotic’ Reform government.
The Party will also benefit from the fact that a certain section of the Conservative commentariat will not countenance supporting Nigel Farage. This includes eminent columnists such as Janan Ganesh (who recently wrote ‘How the Tories might live again’, and also predicted a Tory win in 2024) and extends all the way down to centre-right dancing monkeys on Bluesky such as John ‘Joxley’ Oxley. Expect these people to extol the virtues of Cameronism and denounce Farage for his divisive rhetoric on immigration and failing to stand up to Putin.
If any of this sounds familiar, it is because this is the exact course of events which played out when Donald Trump took over the Republican Party and expelled the ‘RINOs’. Grandees, so called ‘country-club’ Republicans from the Bush era like Colin Powell and Karl Rove have revived their careers by condemning Trumpism, joined by commentators like Bill Kristol and Bret Stephens in the Never Trump movement.