The Tories stare into the abyss
The dominant force in British politics may be spent. What happens next? Emily Hohler reports
The Tories hope that an improved economy will restore support ahead of the general election, despite polls showing the party is blamed for the “lingering cost-of-living crisis”, says Sam Fleming in the Financial Times. Responses to an Ipsos poll suggest the market crisis “triggered” by Liz Truss severely damaged the Tories’ reputation for sound economic stewardship. Although the UK is expected to exit a technical recession this year, GDP is projected to rise by just 0.8% and GDP per head is expected to fall 0.1%, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility. Meanwhile, real household income will not regain its pre-pandemic peak until 2025-2026 and, despite the cut in national insurance, the “freezing of personal tax thresholds has dragged more workers into higher tax brackets and the tax burden has never been higher”, says George Grylls in The Times.
Even if the economy does improve, a YouGov poll for The Times finds that 47% of respondents would still vote Labour, compared with just 26% who would vote Tory. Another recent YouGov poll found Labour is set to take 403 seats at the election, with the Tories reduced to 155. That’s better than in a Survation survey last month, which put the Tories on course to win just 98 seats, with even Rishi Sunak’s at risk, says Greg Heffer in the Daily Mail. A large number, 41%, said they would consider voting tactically to get rid of the Tories. Although the most popular month for the election is May, Sunak has said he intends to call it towards the end of the year, while his deputy, Oliver Dowden, has even hinted that it may be delayed until the latest possible date, 28 January 2025.
The return of Nigel Farage
Nigel Farage, who was joined by a “clutch of right-wing Tory MPs” including
Liz Truss for “riotous” 60th birthday celebrations last week, will be even more “ebullient” at polls showing his Reform UK party is now “neck and neck” with the Tories across the North and Midlands, say Steven Swinford and Chris Smyth in The Times. Farage is “publicly flirting with the idea of a return to frontline politics”, which many Tory MPs think would spell the “obliteration” of their party and lead to a “realignment of the right” after the election.
It’s already happening, says John Harris in The Guardian. With Sunak increasingly playing “hapless observer”, post-Brexit Toryism is “built around a solid set of factors” that ensure that the most “belligerent views will remain noisy and untamed”. The Sunday Telegraph reports that nearly half of Tory councillors think the government is “too left-wing”. This is worrying. If (or when) the Tories lose the election, “effective” opposition, rather than an “unhinged rabble”, will matter.
The idea that the modern Conservative Party, which has been a dominant force in British politics in a roughly two-party system for around 160 years, might be eclipsed, is “quite plausible”, says Daniel Finkelstein in The Times. For some time, the party has been performing “abysmally” with anyone below pensionable age; among the young, its ratings are at “extinction levels”. Alternatives are already being proposed. Dominic Cummings is advancing the “Startup Party”, based on Vote Leave’s imagined agenda. Truss is suggesting that the Tories ally with the nationalist movement, becoming a “Trumpian force” possibly led by Farage (although Truss may have different ideas). Finally, Reform UK could become the main new party of the right. But if the electoral system ensures that there will be “some sort of party on the right”, it also gives a “big advantage” to one that includes much of the centre. The ideas of the far right are simply “too narrow and too exclusive” to win widespread support.