The FT on why the UK needs a credible Conservative party

Some extracts from a very interesting article which appeared in the Financial Times this week.

I'm not endorsing every word of it, but I think it makes some points that are worth thinking about.

In particular, most British people have traditionally been, particularly when voting, both moderate and "small-c" conservative. The part of the political spectrum referred to in the article as "a broad sweep of the electorate lying between supporters of the populist right and those who lean to the left." is a description of the voters whose support put the Conservative party in power for most of the last hundred and fifty years - and the Liberals or Labour in power on those occasions when the Conservatives lost that support.

As the FT correctly identifies, there is currently a gap in that part of the electoral market. And I predict that whoever eventually corners that market, possibly at the election after next rather than in 1929, will be in power a good chunk of the rest of this century.





WHY THE UK NEEDS A CREDIBLE CONSERVATIVE PARTY - extracts.


"What Britain needs is a modern, broad-church party of the centre right — one that offers a genuine alternative to the illusory promises of Farage and a Labour Party that has proved in government to be far more old-left than billed."

"Badenoch limited some of the political damage from her shadow justice secretary’s departure by sacking him as soon as she got wind of his impending treachery. His exit creates an opportunity for her and her party. It removes an ambitious rival and destabilising presence in her shadow cabinet, whose dog-whistle comments on race previous Tory leaders would not have tolerated. It creates an opening to steer the party back to the centre-right ground on which it won past elections."


"The Reform-lite approach that Jenrick championed and some other Tories favour is based on a misdiagnosis of why the Conservatives lost the last election so badly and have been reduced to a shrunken rump. They were not insufficiently right-wing; they were insufficiently competent. If mistaken analysis causes the Tories to assume the wrong remedies, it will rob voters of a moderate right-wing option at the ballot box."


"The post-Brexit purge of more liberal “One Nation” Tories pushed the Conservatives to the right and deprived the party of vital talent. The result was to disenfranchise a broad sweep of the electorate lying between supporters of the populist right and those who lean to the left."


"That leaves a gap for a centre-right political force that is not fixated on anti-outsider nationalism and a half-imagined vision of the past but ready to embrace modern Britain as it is. This party must acknowledge and address voter concerns on immigration, especially illegal migration, but without resorting to xenophobia."


"It should be a forward-looking party that relishes the challenges of the future — from AI to the green transition, rather than rejecting net zero goals. It should be committed to fiscal discipline, stand up for the free market and free trade. And it must be unapologetically pro-business, as the Conservatives traditionally were, and ready to make the case for allowing elements of competition and market forces to reform public services.

This is the challenge for the Tories.

If the only credible choice of governing party at the next general election is between Reform or a Labour Party which, to date, has badly disappointed in government, that will be a disaster not just for the Conservatives but for Britain."

(The whole article can be read at

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