Hard right, wrong turn: Why the UK Conservatives should avoid oversteering

Robert Jenrick takes part in a leadership hustings at the annual Conservative party conference in Birmingham on Sunday. AFP

This week’s UK Conservative party conference in Birmingham has raised – rather than answered – awkward questions. What is the Conservative party nowadays actually for? Who is it for? And, a lesser point, who will be the next leader?

There are only 170,000 party members and just 121 members of Parliament. That means two thirds of the 365 seats that the Conservatives won in 2019 were lost this year to other parties. It’s a staggering defeat. The Birmingham gathering is that of the survivors of a political car crash, a party divided, demoralised and rudderless.

They also face a very tough decision. Should the party of Benjamin Disraeli, Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher veer towards the hard right? Is that necessary to see off Nigel Farage’s latest political creation, the Reform UK party? Or should the Conservatives seek the middle ground where most voters are? As for most voters, they appear simply bored by the party’s perpetual psychodrama.

The Tories have thrown up a succession of weak, and at times weird, leaders: Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak. All of them failed to make sense of Brexit, failed on immigration, proved incompetent when confronted with the Covid-19 pandemic and now seem baffled by what being Conservative means any more, except a desire for power.

The arc of decline began with David Cameron, the Tory prime minister from 2010. Mr Cameron is smooth, affable and posh. He survived the right-wing challenge from Mr Farage’s then political vehicle, the UK Independence Party. In the 2015 general election, UKIP won an astonishing 3.8 million votes. Mr Cameron recognised he had to do something.

Margaret Thatcher and Winston Churchill mugs are sold at Conservative party conference in Birmingham on Sunday. EPA

He organised the ill-thought-out “advisory” Brexit referendum on the UK’s EU membership. That 2016 referendum contained just 16 words: “Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?” Mr Cameron appeared to think he would win easily. When he lost, the problems for the whole UK were mirrored in the internal civil war that followed within the Conservative party.

Senior MPs quit or were thrown out by one of Mr Cameron’s successors, Mr Johnson, who promised to “get Brexit done”. He failed. It’s a running sore. Last weekend, a huge rally in London in favour of rejoining the EU proved that rather than solving the problem of the hard right, Mr Cameron and Mr Johnson had merely created an even bigger problem for the whole country.

You might think that this week’s contenders to lead the Conservative party would have noticed that pandering to Mr Farage and those on the right or hard right of politics has not worked in the past. It is therefore unlikely to work in the future. But the lacklustre leadership contenders seem unwilling to learn the lessons of even their most recent history.

And so, instead of predicting which of the remaining candidates might lead the party, perhaps it is more interesting to consider some of those who have left it in sadness, anger or disgust. They include David Gauke and Dominic Grieve, two thoughtful mainstream former MPs who served as ministers. Then just last week, another former minister, Sayeeda Warsi, quit.

Ms Warsi is an impressive figure who repeatedly and forcefully criticised perceived Islamophobia among Conservatives. She said on X: “It is with a heavy heart that I have today decided for now to no longer take the Conservative whip. I am a Conservative and remain so but sadly the current party are far removed from the party I joined and served in Cabinet. My decision is a reflection of how far right my party has moved and the hypocrisy and double standards in its treatment of different communities. A timely reminder of the issues that I raise in my book Muslims Don’t Matter.”

Ms Warsi’s language here is important. Like other prominent Conservatives, she senses how far her party has shifted to an agenda that appals her, just as former US president Donald Trump’s “Maga” grip on his party has appalled many centrist Republicans. In the UK, the big question for the next Conservative leader therefore is simply stated: which way are you going to turn?

Turning right to appease Mr Farage in the past produced the Brexit debacle. It opened up significant divisions within the party. Why would pandering to the “Little Englander” mentality work in 2024 when it failed in 2015, 2016 and subsequent years?

Conservatives might not listen to outside commentators, or even to the verdict of disenchanted voters. But they might listen to historic words from their former leader Mrs Thatcher.

Back in 1996, a few years after losing her position as prime minister, she was clear: “It is not the centre ground, but the common ground – the shared instincts and traditions of the British people – on which we should pitch our tents. That ground is solid, whereas the centre ground is as slippery as the spin doctors who have colonised it.”

The ground occupied by the hard right is just as slippery. It’s even more dangerous to occupy for a party that used to pride itself on common sense.

A delegate wears a baseball cap with the slogan 'Make the Tories Conservative Again', along with sticker for leadership contender Kemi Badenoch at the annual Conservative party conference in Birmingham. AFP