Now the dust has settled, and the new Labour Government is in power, we can consider what went wrong for the Tories. Is the grand old party dead in the water? Is there a Tory leader who can emerge not just to unite the party, but to lay the foundations for a new forward looking,focussed and united party ready to enter the battlefield in 2029?
Before I indulge in my customarypractice of performing open heart surgery on the Tories, without the use of anaesthetic and with blunt instruments, let me give you the timeline to get a feel for what you can expect.
Nominations for the Tory leadership ended on 29th July. The candidates areKemi Badenoch,Dame Priti Patel, Mel Stride, Robert Jenrick, Tom Tugendhat and James Cleverly. The former Home Secretary Suella Braverman will not be running, I understand she did consider it but was unable to secure enough Tory MPs to nominate her.
By September the Tories will select four candidates, though I am of the belief that it might be wiser for them to narrow this down to only two candidates. The advantage being that you don’t allow for too much internal discord which can often get out of hand and create factions. Factions always tend to create intragroup conflict which is the last thing any new incoming leader wants. So my advice to the 1922 Committee and the Tory Parliamentary Party is simple, how you conduct yourself now, how you read the room (the national mood) and how you take decisions that are in the national interest will be crucial. There are big egos at play, maybe those need to be set aside given the monumental beating the party took at the elections.
The Conservative Party conference starts on 29th September and over those few precious days, the selected candidates will get an opportunity to put their case to the party and to the nation.This is when the final two candidates will be confirmed.
The members on-line ballot will open thereafter and those eligible will have until 31st October to cast their vote for their preferred leader. And on 2nd November the new leader will be announced.
So who will the final two be from Kemi Badenoch, Dame Priti Patel, Mel Stride, Robert Jenrick, Tom Tugendhat and James Cleverly?And is there one person who stands out as a possible leadership front runner?
You will see many polls telling us who the favourite is of the public, or not. Currently it seems Tom Tugendhatis liked more than the others. However, don’t be taken in by such polls. These moments in time rarely express true voter sentiments. Even more importantly, they rarely tell us who might really be a good leader for a party that’s in such a mess.
The Tories need to understand one simple rule, they are meant to be a centre-right party. Indulging in woke stupidity is utter madness, and pandering to factions from the days of Brexit and thereafter are not electorate friendly. The nation is no longer in the traditional sense of defined left and right politics. The red wall that PM Johnson secured, was because those traditional Labour voters rejected the politics of appeasement. Not securing our streets from the madness of hate marchers and other extremists loses you your core supporters. Ministerial behaviour in governmentthat disrespects commonsense will be rejected by all sections of society. I can go on, but let me assure all Tories, if you think you know everything just because you are a politician, then think again. Remember you just got your butt kicked for your indiscretions and lack of political nous.
The next leader of the Conservative party has less than two years to establish a renewed sense of purpose, a united disciplined message and of course, command over policies that matter to the British public.
In the next two years the wheels will begin to wobble and might even come off for the Labour government. PM Starmer was lucky to be in the right place at the right time. He was lucky that even when he changed his mind every other week the electorate ignored it. Labour was lucky that the Tories basically threw away every advantage they had by their sheer incompetence. But in the real world, those big pre-election promises will be difficult to deliver. We will see Labour blaming the Tories for all the ills in society, folks that is politics. The question is, are you stupid enough to be hoodwinked?
Illegal immigration will not go away. Labour will probably allow most illegals to remain andgerrymander the data for public consumption.
They will not make any dent on the housing crisis, or on the cost of living, or in reducing the hate marches or the anarchy on our streets.Their indulgence with extremists on the global stage will come back to haunt them. Their own members in their factional groups will protest for not delivering on their core mad ideology.
Will the Tories be ready to take advantage? That all depends on who they choose as their leader.
In my view, they need a leader who is clearly on the right of British politics. Whoever it is, they better be pretty clued on with the task in hand.
