‘Be careful what you wish for…’

Tory conference ends today with a speech by Kemi Badenoch. Did you notice it was happening?

As a reader of a political website, you might have.  But you would be very unusual.

Drifting to apathy

This is not to say that the other party conferences, even that of the Party of government, would have made a huge public impact. That isn’t how our current news environment works. But reports from the conference all describe small audiences and a lack of energy and coherence from the top down. I mean this is a party that can’t even be trusted to spell Britain, never mind govern it. They are no longer a serious party and the burghers in Barbour who would once have flocked to this gathering of the faithful know it. Some have drifted to Reform, some to the Lib Dems, many to apathy.

READ MORE: Darren Jones on his new role, the morning school run and his political awakening

Most of the talk about the Tories is about what would have seemed unthinkable (if desirable) for most of my life – their demise as a major political party. God I wanted to see that. To see the party of Thatcher consigned to the dustbin of history – well I am not going to pretend that this likelihood doesn’t still give me a definite thrill.

But here’s the thing – Thatcher may have long since departed but her economic legacy doesn’t just remain – it has metastasised. I do not believe that New Labour were the children of Thatcher in quite the way she purported to (and how clever was that as a piece of political messaging? Further cementing distrust of Blair from the left while allowing the Tories to claim their austerity as a “continuation” of Blairism).

But the notion of Thatcherite economics has gone from a deep philosophy of a small state where the government was unafraid to go through the pain of having distinctive losers (both workers and the millions made unemployed) and winners to a vague notion that any and all tax cuts will bring growth – no matter what the impact on the state’s capacity to deliver or the economic ability to fund those cuts. The Tories became unwilling to make the argument for cutting the state – the prerequisite for Thatcherism – because by the end, even they knew there were no more cut they could make that wouldn’t lead to a howl of pain from the country they wanted to serve. Boris Johnson was no Thatcherite – he was too unwilling to be unloved. That he became despised for his own careless cruelty overseeing a Downing Street that saw itself as above the ‘plebs’ should not be confused with having a genuine political philosophy rather than simply a desire to be ‘World King.”

The supposedly ‘liberal’ Tories David Cameron and George Osborne – who did so much talking left on social issues to woo a gullible commentariat who were bored with Labour dominance – are now wining and dining Robert Jenrick – he of the “No non-white faces” comments. This is seen by some as a dramatic shift. It’s not. Their politics of austerity always had winners and losers too. It was described by some as “Thatcherism on steroids” and so it proved both in the impact it had on the losers and the long term damage it did to our economy, our productivity and people’s lives. Those losers have seen wages stagnate for a decade and a half while the services they relied on were chipped away at (at best) and torn away. Their anger has been directed into first Brexit and now immigration protests. I might disagree with the solutions they believe in but their anger at their loss is genuine and should be respected and understood.

The Tories are now trying to reclaim the mantle of “fiscal rectitude” at their mini conference. Good luck, as they say, with that. But they don’t actually mean running a good economy that benefits the majority of the citizens of the UK. They mean cutting the state back ever further with no answers for what that would mean for these same people who are angry at what has already been lost. This is something even Reform UK don’t support. As they have found out in the places they are in power – such as Kent where they are mooting raising Council Tax – there are some things the (local in this case) state has to do and it has already been cut to the bone by Cameron and Osborne.

The party of Liz Truss Boris Johnson  and Cameron and Osborne making claims to be the party of sound finances is just laughable. And people are just laughing. The Tories don’t inspire the kind of fear or admiration (depending on your viewpoint) that they previously generated. They just inspire derision. I’ve never – not even when we were laughing at William Hague in a baseball cap in the pretty sound knowledge that the Tories wouldn’t come back at the 2001 election – known a party so beaten. Even the 2015 Lib Dems might look at the Tories now with pity.

No path back

It is very hard to see a path back for the Tories at the moment. The Tories haven’t just been beaten, they have been hollowed out first by their consequences of their own bad policies then by their inability to face those consequences head on. And finally by the fracturing of their vote to an insurgent populist right that they were utterly unequipped to fight. In fact they can’t even decide if they want to fight or flirt with Reform.

Where the Lib Dems were given a political lifeline by Brexit and their chance to remake themselves in opposition to their former allies, there is little on the horizon that offers hope of a resurgence of Tory conservatism. If people want right wing populism they will vote for the (more) popular version in Reform. If people want ‘small c conservative’ economics with a liberal bent they will vote for the Lib Dems. Some have said that a recession might be the way back for the Tories. I don’t think a recession will push the ever growing band of those likely to lose out away from populists. That’s not the lesson I take from history. So even if the Tories are wishing for Labour to fail in this way, they too should be careful what they wish for. Even more they should be careful to not be seen wishing for it.

Easier opponent?

Labour may be in the doldrums in terms of their polling and popularity but what they aren’t is beaten. However, there are significant problems that come for Labour in the demise of the Tories.

Subscribe here to our daily newsletter roundup of Labour news, analysis and comment– and follow us on Bluesky, WhatsApp, X and Facebook.

Labour know how to fight the Tories – we’ve done it for decades. Sometimes we’ve even succeeded. We have become very good at defining ourselves against the Tories. We now have to unlearn a lot of that.

If Labour simply try to run the same playbook against Reform as they have against the Tories it will fail. Because Reform are not the same as the Tories nor are they seeking to appeal to the same voters as the Tories. Some of their older voters, true, are some of the lower middle class winners from Thatcherism. The tiny brief cohort that did well out of the ‘property owning democracy’ who became landlords of houses that were once socially owned. But mostly, Reform are appealing to those who feel they have lost out and are angry about it. Reform have an answer to that anger.

I may believe with every fibre of my being that every element of their answer is wrong. But I do know who they are appealing to and I recognise the strength of that appeal. And some of that strength – the reason for their ‘us and them’ rhetoric is that they have recognised that we are in a time of winners and losers. And they are appealing to those who have felt themselves to be on the losing side for far too long. Grievance politics is ugly and would be a catastrophic path for Labour to ape. But if Labour does not recognise that this is what we’re fighting against – and offer hope to the aggrieved – then we will fail to stem the tide.

Labour have also got a lot of the fight against the Tories wrong over the years. Labour’s have suffered losses through many attempts to draw very simplistic ‘class war’ lines against the Tories that might please activists but repelled voters. Voters in the Red Wall loved Boris until they didn’t. And it wasn’t him being posh that did for him. Simply pointing at Nigel Farage and saying “But he’s posh” will do nothing to diminish his credibility.

Reform would be seriously lost without Nigel Farage. In fact, one thing that has really struck me when listening (as I do obsessively)  to political programmes and podcasts is that the words ‘Farage’ and ‘Reform’ are pretty much interchangeable. So it will be an important part of Labour’s strategy to bring down Farage’s popularity.

But they will not do this if they return to that old playbook of pointing out he went to Dulwich and used to be a stockbroker. The voters have that priced in. We need to be asking Reform curious voters what they are most worried about when it comes to Farage and use that to define him. Not simply tell ourselves the scare stories about him that get our juices flowing.

Share your thoughts. Contribute on this story or tell your own by writing to our Editor. The best letters every week will be published on the site. Find out how to get your letter published.

Labour might end up missing the Tories as an easier to define opponent. They may also (whisper it) want them to recover just enough in the polls to split the right wing vote to allow them to come through the middle. If Labour don’t manage to adjust to a post-Tory reality the irony might be that the last thing the Tories manage to harm is – once again – Labour.

• • SHARE: If you have anything to share that we should be looking into or publishing about this story – or any other topic involving Labour– contact us (strictly anonymously if you wish) at [email protected].
  • SUBSCRIBE: Sign up to LabourList’s morning email here for the best briefing on everything Labour, every weekday morning.
  • DONATE: If you value our work, please chip in a few pounds a week and become one of our supporters, helping sustain and expand our coverage.
  • PARTNER: If you or your organisation might be interested in partnering with us on sponsored events or projects, email [email protected].
  • ADVERTISE: If your organisation would like to advertise or run sponsored pieces on LabourList‘s daily newsletter or website, contact our exclusive ad partners Total Politics at [email protected].