Will the right unite?

Jonathan Edwards

The Conservative Party in the UK is undoubtedly going through an identity crisis.

I’m not the biggest fan of party conferences because these days they are money-generating events and performative in nature as opposed to serious policy-making exercises. After a month of listening and reading commentary on the respective party gatherings, the noise merges into one big smudge.

In the case of the Tories, the big announcements on leaving the European Convention on Human Rights; the £47bn cuts to public expenditure based on an axe to welfare spending; and a forced removal plan to detain and deport 150,000 illegal immigrants could all have been delivered from the Reform conference.

The Tories, who find themselves third in the polls across the UK, and fourth in Wales, are in the type of strategic sinkhole that the party has never faced in its long and illustrious history.

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Duopoly

The old duopoly which enabled the Tories to use Labour as a polarising target evaporated once it was overtaken by Reform.

This major shift has been aided by the deliberate strategic decision of Labour to frame UK politics as a fight between them and Reform – which Labour hope will unite the progressive side behind them while indirectly undermining the Conservatives.

So far, the latter is working while the jury is out on the former.

The Tories are finding out that the strategic choices are more difficult the lower down the political food chain you go. It finds itself outflanked and losing politicians, activists and supporters in droves to a challenger party.

Leader Kemi Badenoch has decided to move the Tories more to the right to stop the haemorrhage but in doing so will surely alienate those who have traditionally supported the Conservatives who don’t subscribe to radical right ideology.

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'The worst sort of prejudice'

Witness the conference contribution of Michael Heseltine, who accused the party’s leadership of “encouraging the worst sort of prejudice”. The Lib Dems will surely try and convert the cohort of voters that the likes of Heseltine would have traditionally represented.

Badenoch’s position is not aided by the positioning of her rival for the leadership, Robert Jenrick, who seems to be acting with impunity, forcing his leader to dance to his increasingly extreme tune.

The common strategy between both seems to be to mimic Reform in the hope of being able to pick up the pieces if the insurgency led by Mr Farage implodes. The obvious question which arises then is what happens if there isn’t a Reform blow out before the next general election.

One current major division line between Badenoch and Jenrick falls on the question of working with Reform. Badenoch has so far ruled it out while Jenrick hasn’t.

Returning to Michael Heseltine, he also reportedly said that the Tories must make it clear that they would never “have any part in the populist extremism of Nigel Farage”.

Others in the party are far more open to the idea, based on their shared values and a realisation that a divided right would find it difficult to form a post-2029 government.

Critically, a poll this week of Tory members by YouGov for Sky News indicates that two thirds would like some sort of pact going forward.

Power

For the right in general, politics is about power as opposed to the tribal loyalties and blind obsession with ideological purity on the left. It is not unsurprising therefore to see active Conservatives looking at the next general election through the prism of the current polls and thinking that there is only one plausible route to some sort of victory.

The Senedd election results will probably bring matters to a head on this debate if the current projections materialise on election day. Firstly, because the Tories in the Senedd have a position of working with Reform if the numbers add up, but more importantly a fourth-place finish in the election next May in Wales will inevitably destabilise the Tories at UK level.

Looking down the barrel of a humiliating election result at the next general election, if the polls don’t shift, expect the volume on the unite the right clarion calls to get louder.

Jonathan Edwards was the MP for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr 2010-24