The latest poll from YouGov puts Labour at 23%, Reform UK at 23% and the Conservatives at 20%. On the face of it, the case for a deal between the two Right-of-centre parties is compelling.

But not so fast. Evidence is piling up that any such pact would be unpopular with voters — and especially Conservative voters. That’s the big finding in a new report from former Tory peer Lord Ashcroft. Conservative voters and Reform voters were asked whether they preferred the leader of the rival party — Nigel Farage or Kemi Badenoch — to Andy Burnham. Then they were asked if they preferred the idea of a Tory-Reform coalition government to a centre-left coalition. Looking across these two metrics, 31% of Conservatives were hostile to Reform on both counts, compared to the 8% of Reform voters who were doubly hostile to the Tories.

Of course, if one assumes that Reform is, on the whole, further to the Right than the Conservatives, and therefore more distant from Labour, one might expect this sort of disparity. But the crucial point is the trend. Since February — when Lord Ashcroft Polls last asked these questions — the doubly hostile proportion among Conservative voters has gone up from 21% to 31%. Correspondingly, the Reform-friendly proportion that preferred Farage to Burnham and a Conservative-Reform coalition to a centre-left coalition declined from 55% to 40%.

This isn’t the only polling source picking up growing Tory resistance to Reform. For instance, polling from Merlin Strategy this month asked the public about “negative voting intention”, or the party they’d most want to vote against. In April, Labour was top at 38%. However, the latest survey has Labour’s share of the negative vote dropping back to 27%, with Reform becoming the most unpopular party for those who vote for other parties at 35%.

All of this tells us three things. The first is that Burnham has made a real difference to Labour’s fortunes. The second is that hostility to Reform and Farage isn’t just growing on the Left, but on the Right too. And finally, that the Conservative voter base is still a broad church with one wing hostile to Reform, but the other open to a deal. As recent polling shows, the anti-Reform shift is especially pronounced among Conservative voters.

Badenoch shows every sign of having understood these realities. She can’t choose between essential parts of her base: both must be kept happy. On the policy front, she’s moved to shore up her Right flank, but in regard to Reform she’s been clear in her disdain — and her rejection of an alliance.

But in maintaining a position that is both non-centrist and anti-populist, how does she break out of the box in which the Conservative Party finds itself? That is, on roughly 20% of the vote, neither falling nor rising.

The answer is not to think ideologically, but demographically. If you can’t move Left or Right, then look at those parts of the population with whom your existing message isn’t getting through. For the Tories, that is most obviously younger voters. It’s time, perhaps, for some policy announcements that don’t just appeal to wealthy pensioners.

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Peter Franklin is Associate Editor of UnHerd. He was previously a policy advisor and speechwriter on environmental and social issues.

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