Popular demand

Divided parties do not win elections, yet tomorrow morning another caucus will emerge within the Tory camp as Liz Truss launches her latest campaign. Popular Conservatism is the former prime minister’s new platform to rally MPS and lobby for tougher policies in areas such as immigration and tax cuts. This, wrote “Popcons” director Mark Littlewood in

The Telegraph yesterday, can only be achieved by rebuilding the democratic accountability that has been “gnawed away at” for years by Britain’s bureaucratic structures.

Doubtless this will be viewed by some as a radical agenda. But a smaller state and an end to uncontrolled mass migration are attractive policies to a Tory base exasperated that the tax burden will hit its highest level in seven decades at the end of this parliament, productivity in the public sector has clicked into reverse, and successive prime ministers and home secretaries have promised and yet failed to control our borders. Ms Truss is right to warn of the institutional barriers that now make change, insofar as there is an appetite for it among our political elites, near-impossible.

It will come as little solace to Rishi Sunak that Nigel Farage, whose insurgent party is fast in the ascendancy, is expected to speak at the Popcons gathering. Some 13 per cent of the population now plan to vote Reform UK at the next general election. Last week, its support in the Red Wall climbed to its highest level ever. A chunk of the UK electorate will vote for Reform UK with eyes wide open, fully cognisant that a vote for the party that Mr Farage helped create, now led by Richard Tice, could nudge Sir Keir Starmer into Number 10. A Faragetruss alliance could push Mr Sunak’s brand of Conservatism deeper into the shadows.

The picture is blurred further by polling that last weekend indicated Penny Mordaunt, widely regarded as a Tory moderate, is the comfortable favourite to replace Mr Sunak after the next election, despite the precariousness of her seat. Over the past 15 months, the Prime Minister has sought to straddle two stools – between the hardliners and those who favour economic interventionism, reflecting the party’s two main voting coalitions. At 20 points behind in the polls, it would be reasonable to wonder whether this strategy may need changing.

It is vital that Mr Sunak uses the coming months to win back his party’s traditional supporters with policies that matter to them. The forthcoming Budget provides an opportunity for him to set Britain back on the path to economic freedom. Within months, manifestos will be prepared, slogans restated, policies costed and explained. Popcons may hope to influence this process. The question is whether they will – or should – succeed.