The Tories need to fight out their internal battle or they are doomed

Telegraph

04-05-2025

In time honoured fashion, the Tories and Labour have studied the drubbing they received last week and concluded that the public wants them to carry on as normal. We'll go 'further, faster', says Sir Keir. 'No lurch to the Right', insist the Conservatives. For Labour this is a reasonable bet: the economy might turn around, its vote isn't so divided (yet).
But for the Tories, it's utter madness – a tone deaf, do-nothingness that will send them the way of the old Liberal Party and WH Smith. As with Smith's, the Tory brand is so moribund and confusing, I've forgotten what they used to sell. Paper? Council houses? Knighthoods and pens.
Team Kemi's 'don't lose your head' argument does enjoy a superficial logic. They say: we can't copy Reform because Reform isn't real. In these local elections, it won a third of the vote on a third of the turnout, on a contradictory platform that fails scrutiny (cut taxes, raise welfare). Labour has sunk in the polls, too – because governing in the 21st century is jolly hard, thanks to an elderly population and sluggish growth, and Starmer proves that entering office promising the moon will lead to disappointment.
Nevertheless, similarly awful, centre-left parties have won re-election in Canada and Australia. Why? Because the centre-right opposition allowed itself to be branded as Trumpian. In other words, when it comes to running the country, the voters will ultimately choose an impression of competence over Reform-style theatrics – a reality that will become clear at the next UK election, when Reform nominates Darren Grimes for home secretary (his nan would nae believe it).
Moreover, echoing Reform would encourage some Tory MPs to defect to the Lib Dems. Therefore, unwilling or unable to embrace radical positions on immigration or net-zero, Kemi prefers to let her party evolve behind closed doors, via a policy negotiation process that will someday emerge onto the balcony as a fully-fledged 'plan'.
The problem with this conclave style of politics is it cedes all publicity to Nigel Farage. Kemi only appears on television to explain why she has nothing to say and why it's rude of journalists to ask.
In these tense confrontations, occasionally bordering on violence, one gets a flash of why grassroots Tories voted for her in October 2024. They thought they were getting a Nigerian-British woman who loves the country but can see its flaws, and has no fear in naming them. But her handlers, anticipating bad reviews among the critical voting blocs of Times columnists and Dr Who actors, decided to rein her majesty in and 'soften' her image.
The result: an uncomfortable silence. You know Kemi wants to let rip; we can see what she's capable of from PMQs. But too often she lacks confidence or definition, and I for one am tired of being invited to press conferences to be given a lecture on 'the Kantian dualism in mass migration,' deploying philosophical reflection to disguise the absence of hard policy.
Modern politics is an attention economy. For the past year, the Tories have chosen not to compete – and damage has plainly been done.
The significance of the local elections is that in many parts of the country the Tories lost their historic position as the natural anti-Labour vote. Take my turf of Kent, where they went from 62 seats on Thursday night to just 5 in the morning; Reform is on 57. This was extraordinary. Even in 1993, when the Tories last lost the council at the height of Labour's revival, they still retained 41 councillors.
I grew up believing Kentish politics operated somewhere to the Right of Mississippi, dominated by the blues with the occasional breakthrough for the reds in the coastal towns. But a revolution in voter psychology has taken effect. In the future, anyone who wishes to vote tactically to get rid of Keir Starmer, especially if they live east of the river Medway, will no longer automatically vote Tory: they might judge that Reform has a better chance.
If sitting around praying for Reform to collapse doesn't fix things, the Tories could always offer a pact. This, of course, would acknowledge their diminished status, look desperate, and Nigel is likely to plot an amusingly public display of saying 'no'. So the only alternative is to court Reform voters and rebrand the party from top to bottom as populist and patriotic. The more liberal Tories fight back against this, the better. Have the battle and win it: their mass-defection to Ed Davey's clown show will confirm that the party has made a choice and is sticking to it. Tony Blair had his clause 4 moment. Keir Starmer expelled Jeremy Corbyn.
The death of the old, Cameronian coalition of economic and social liberals is overdue anyway, because Brexit rendered it irrelevant. The day after that referendum, half the conservatives I grew up with became rabid nationalists, the other half bitter liberals – and the urban centre of my home town of Sevenoaks, once populated by Hyacinth Buckets, is now a mini Hoxton. They actually held a 'climate fair' on the green this weekend. I'm pleased to say it was freezing cold.
Cutting one's losses among the joss-stick burning classes is the only way to build up votes elsewhere, and if gambling on a new message and a new demography feels temperamentally unconservative, remember that Peel did it, Disraeli did it and Thatcher did it, too. The paradox of conservatism is that it retains its identity, as the traditional party of governance, by changing – including its highest personnel.
Which brings us to the final question: is Kemi best placed to revive the Tories? The local results suggest that so far she's failing, and it further weakens her position that the party has a viable alternative.
After losing the leadership election, Rob Jenrick adopted the old trick of turning up to the office the next day and acting as if he got the job, issuing press releases, running marathons, taking senior but young-looking journalists to lunch, where he has impressed them with his analysis of the national crisis, his understanding of what needs to be done.
All Kemi can say to fend off his implicit challenge is that to have five leaders within two years would look ridiculous – but the sad truth is that no one is looking anyway. While Reform is capturing the high street, like an invasion of Turkish barbers, the Tories are in danger of closing down for good.