Dignity is not a quality which has always been associated with the behaviour of the Conservative Party in recent years. It was, however, evident in the farewell speech of the outgoing prime minister Rishi Sunak, as he acknowledged his party’s defeat in the general election, and announced his decision to stand down as party leader. Mr Sunak apologised to “good colleagues” who had lost their Commons seats, and to the disappointed country which had ejected his government from office, saying, “I take responsibility for this loss.” Generously, he described his opponent Sir Keir Starmer as “a decent, public-spirited man” and wished him success in Downing Street.
Yet although Mr Sunak retained his Yorkshire seat, it must have been a deeply uncomfortable election night. At count after count, semi-stunned big beasts of the Conservative party were brusquely expelled from the parliamentary enclosure. Eight cabinet ministers lost their seats, including Penny Mordaunt, the leader of the Commons, Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, and Gillian Keegan, the education secretary. The former prime minister Liz Truss, who had coasted to victory on a whopping 26,195 majority in 2019, saw her seat go to Labour; so too did Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former business secretary. Fourteen years of Conservative government have ended with a Labour landslide and a Tory party in spectacular and acrimonious disarray. As the low turnout and dispensation of votes has indicated, this appears due more to a collapse of the Conservative vote since 2019 than any triumph of the Labour one.
Central to the task of gradually rebuilding a shattered party, and making it credible once again, is a clear-eyed assessment of how that implosion came about. It may be superficially tempting for the more excitable elements on the right of the party to look to Nigel Farage’s populist Reform: and conclude that — with five new MPs and more than 4 million votes — it has annexed a substantial chunk of Conservative support. As the leadership contest cranks into action, the proposed solution of potential candidates such as the former home secretary Suella Braverman is to “reunite the right” by encouraging Mr Farage and his party into the Tory fold. Others may simply seek to emulate Reform in right-wing posturing and stridency.
Such a path is fraught with misconceptions, and could well drive centrist Tories to the newly reinvigorated Liberal Democrats. It is true that in many places Reform effectively split the Conservative vote, although its energetic discontents also attracted former Labour voters. Yet Reform’s success is not primarily the cause of Tory woes, but their effect: the plummeting of support for the Conservative party began long before Mr Farage threw his hat in the electoral ring. As the FT has observed, data modelling put the Conservatives on course to lose a general election as early as January 2022, in the thick of Boris Johnson’s “Partygate” scandal over pandemic lockdown breaches. Public confidence in the party was dealt another blow with Liz Truss’s disastrous mini-budget.
As the media focus now shifts to the new Labour government, the Conservatives — relieved of the rolling drama of office — must take the opportunity for a period of calm but profound self-reflection. Their chief task will be to define anew what they believe conservatism should stand for, and how it was that a creed which once valued a small state, law and order, the preservation of the countryside, fiscal prudence and institutional continuity ended up delivering so many contradictions of those precepts: a top-heavy state with a crumbling justice system, filthy waterways and the heaviest tax burden since the Second World War, along with three prime ministers in the last five years.
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There have been successes, such as Britain’s role at the forefront of support for Ukraine. And although Mr Sunak’s campaign contained missteps, when in office he made diligent efforts to restore the stability that his predecessors had shredded. It was graceful of Mr Sunak to claim responsibility for Conservative defeat. But as it charts a difficult, delicate path back from humiliation, his fractious party would be very foolish to believe him.
