August 15, 2024 - 7:00am

Six weeks after the election, surviving Conservative MP Neil O’Brien produced his own analysis of the result, highlighting the emergence of new dynamics in British politics. Unfortunately for the Conservatives, there may not be a comforting narrative for them to rely on. O’Brien has identified that now there are few three-way marginals, but instead two distinct groups of battlegrounds: around 300 seats where the Tories face Labour, and over 80 where Lib Dems and the Conservatives face off. Brought together, as he puts it, Labour and Lib Dems are forming an anti-Tory coalition.

The diagnosis is pretty accurate. The overriding narrative of the election was that it was about getting the Tories out. The problem for the party is that if 2029 becomes about keeping them out, this coalition could hold with brutal effectiveness. That, in turn, could make the next election harder than the recent one for the Conservatives.

Recent evidence suggests that winning back power is already difficult. In 2001, the Conservatives gained just one seat back from Labour. In both 1983 and 2015, the Labour Party went backwards after its first defeat. The Tories may hope that a more volatile politics helps them flip last month’s result in one term, but that very much goes against the precedent of previous majorities.

The solidification of an anti-Conservative coalition would make things much harder for the party. At present, Labour can focus on defending seats, while the Lib Dems might hope to pick off a few of the seats where they came close this time. If voters remain motivated against the Tories, this looks like a simple task. For one thing, voting tactically is easier if you have an incumbent MP to rally behind or where someone lost narrowly last time. In somewhere like Shropshire South, for example, it would only take 2000 Labour-Lib switches to flip the seat away from the Tories.

Some of the other trends of 2024 should also worry the Tories. Turnout was down, and many on the Left backed the Greens or independent candidates. Labour won a huge majority with nearly a million fewer votes than when they lost in 2019. This was partly fuelled by complacency about how the result would turn out, giving voters a sense it was “safe” to go elsewhere. If these voters fear a Tory return, they might be more motivated to get to the polling station and back Labour.

Underneath all this sits a huge structural problem for the Conservatives. Their vote is now heavily skewed towards the old, making it vulnerable to a more natural form of attrition. Statistics suggest that around a million Tory voters will pass away between now and the next poll, and at present, they are not being replaced among younger cohorts. The Tories have to win back a huge amount of people who deserted them this July just to stay still.

Five years is still a long time, and making firm predictions is a foolhardy business. There is every chance that the Labour government could struggle, or some unexpected event or crisis could derail it. Yet this summer’s electoral map sets the Conservatives a real challenge.

They have to win back a swathe of seats, but they also face an electoral landscape that was crafted to boot them out of power. If that solidifies around keeping them out, the distribution of votes means that it could become stronger than it is already, making the next election more of a challenge than the last one. The 2024 election was the worst election result the Tories have ever had, but that doesn’t mean the next one can’t be worse.


John Oxley is a corporate strategist and political commentator. His Substack is Joxley Writes.

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