July 31, 2024 - 7:00am
With nominations closing earlier this week, the good news for the six candidates vying to be the next Conservative leader is that, throughout its long history, the party has usually bounced back from substantial defeats. On the first three occasions in the last century when the Conservatives suffered a pasting at the polls — 1906, 1945 and 1966 — they went on to gain an average of 94 seats at the next election. Every time, the party stared into the abyss before coming roaring back.
Then 1997 happened. After Tony Blair’s landslide victory, until recently the Conservatives’ worst result since 1832, the pendulum that had so decisively swung against the Tories refused to swing back. Voters went to the polls in 2001 and rewarded the party, led by William Hague, with just one extra MP and another big defeat.
What lessons can today’s Tories learn from a quarter of a century ago? The first is the need to have your best players on the pitch. Hague inherited just 165 MPs after the shellacking of 1997. Yet of the MPs who remained, too many were reluctant to play their part in rebuilding the party. Ken Clarke, the former chancellor and one of the party’s few nationally popular figures, refused to serve in the Shadow Cabinet. Others followed his lead. By the midpoint of the parliament, Hague’s original picks to shadow the chancellor, home secretary and foreign secretary had all departed for the backbenches.
The next Conservative leader will start with an even smaller parliamentary party — 44 fewer seats than after 1997 — and will be unable to call upon any of the record number of Cabinet ministers who lost their seats on 4 July. That includes two-time leadership candidate Penny Mordaunt, as well as the former secretaries of state for education, defence, justice, transport and culture, many of whom would have played a big role in the party’s post-election recovery.
Successfully mustering the energies of 121 MPs against a government with over 400 will be an almighty challenge for the next leader. If too many of the remaining Tory big beasts refuse to serve on the front bench, it might prove an impossible one. All of the leadership candidates have an interest in this. A joint pledge to loyally serve in the Shadow Cabinet, should they be asked, would be a useful sign that the party has learned a key lesson from its previous experience in Opposition.
Hague’s other great problem — familiar to almost all Tory leaders since — was insecurity in the role of leader. Uncertain of support from his MPs, too many of whom failed to process the magnitude of the Conservative defeat, he stood up to his party too little and instead gave it what it wanted. This led to a policy platform too focused on Europe — the party’s own obsession — and not the bread-and-butter issues that decided the next election.
The Conservatives’ recovery in the years ahead will be seriously stunted if the next leader also has to spend their time securing their own position. It’s not difficult to imagine how this could once again lead to a fixation on a new shibboleth for the Right, such as Britain’s relationship with the ECHR, at the expense of voters’ other priorities.
The ECHR, especially Tom Tugendhat’s surprise willingness to consider leaving it, dominated headlines in the opening phase of the leadership election. If it continues to do so, it will signal a party engaging in conversation with itself and not the British people. Worse, as in 2001, it might lead the Tories to go into the next election with a robust policy on Europe but too little to offer on the economy, NHS and education. The result could well be another landslide defeat.
History suggests that the Conservatives could make a strong recovery at the ballot box next time. But the experience of 1997-2001 serves as a warning not to take this for granted. The pendulum is not guaranteed to swing back; and if the party repeats the mistake of a quarter of a century ago, it won’t.
Lee David Evans is an historian of the Conservative Party and the John Ramsden Fellow at the Mile End Institute at Queen Mary, University of London.
LeeDavidEvansUK
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SubscribeThen author seems to have no realisation that the levels of immigration are the main “fixation” of vast swathes of the electorate, and therefore any focus on the ECHR is essential to becoming relevant to voters.
‘Vast swathes’ a little unclear but undoubtedly many are. Whether ahead of other concerns much less clear as the GE election result evidences. 92% of the electorate did not vote for Reform, the party majoring most on immigration.
I suspect that the “loveless landslide” enjoyed by Labour would have been hugely enhanced with a genuine commitment to reduce immigration to levels that allow integration into U.K. society to happen (in the way that pre-Blair levels used to allow)
Some early signs indicate that’s there – the prosecution of agencies obtaining visas for fictious jobs, and the outline plans to train more of our own, and the extension of the law to treat people smugglers like terrorists and hence can convict on plans and not just acts. But what may be different is the rhetoric isn’t way out ahead of the practical policy – which is what it had been for 14 yrs.
I do agree though reducing net migration to a level the UK public thinks reasonable going to be essential to Lab staying in power.
Big State vs Little State is the core difference (or should be!) for natural conservative (small “c”) voters.
Thatcher and Major seemed to understand this, except, perhaps, with Majors adoration of the EEC which soon became the EU after Maastricht.
In my view Cameron decided that aping Blair was the only way (particularly during the Conservative/LibDem period to 2015.
I think us “small state” lot are and will continue to be fighting a losing battle on this whoever is nominally in charge of the Conservatives. Once “The State” has captured something it sems virtually impossible to reverse this, “austerity” from 2010 to 2015 didn’t manage to.
Even after such a momentous defeat for the big state, elites, media, commentators as the Referendum in 2016 there was no appetite by those making the rules to reduce the size of the state.
Whatever colour the ruling party has, the result will remain the same. Labour have probably got 2 terms of Parliament coming, by which time more and more of UK life will be managed by technocrats and the unelected. Conservatives will get back in (mainly as people have realised they are no better off under Labour), there will be neither appetite nor ability to real back on the Big State agenda.
Things can often go in cycles so you may be right.
But the ‘small state’ proponents need answers to things like Thames Water and Railways debacles, let alone health and social care. And folks haven’t entirely forgotten the 208 Crash was the financial free market gone mad. Trickle down ain’t working either is it as we’ve become even more unequal and folks feel and sense that.
The ‘small state’ proponents are being intellectually lazy to just blame the ‘capture’ idea on non descript others. They need to go away and reflect much more on why their form of capitalism has not worked in quite the way they hoped. It’s not unusual to go through a ‘find a scapegoat’ phase but they need to move through that fast and get to the real reflection.
In the early ’90s democracy was parcelled off to the banks, supranational bodies, multi-corporations and bloated NGOs. They were happy to offshore jobs, indulge in ever increasing financial risk taking, and open the doors to mass immigration.
It was the Brave New World technocrats and Plato’s “Philosopher Kings” who were responsible. That’s your answer, I suggest you watch Adam Curtis’ “The Trap” if it’s still available on the BBC iPlayer.
I think you avoid the economic and political philosophy that drove alot of that – Neoliberalism. I think sometimes the Right wants, even needs, the convenience of a type of person they can blame to avoid really having to look at some key economic philosophies and their impact on so many. You kind of don’t want to say it but it’s there – the v Rich done v well under this philosophy.
You’re being deliberately obtuse again. That is what governments from both sides of the Atlantic did from the early Nineties, Democrats and Republicans, New Labour and Tories. They all signed up to it, I can’t help you with your cognitive dissonance.
Watch “The Trap”
Small state is not simply free market capitalism. I don’t think that has ever been attempted anyway, there is always some regulations in place to limit the free market (thankfully).
As has been seen there is real tension between the free marketeers and other conservative types. The Thames Water debacle seems to be a clear failure of OffWat, were they fast asleep when Maquarie (not sure on spelling here?) raped the company? The technocratic Quangos etc, seem incapable of holding anyone to account even though they supposedly have the power.
I don’t doubt OffWat needs a review given what’s happened, but the fiduciary primacy to shareholders drove the owners to strip the company of it’s investment capital. That begs a much bigger question that potentially regulation can only ever go so far to address. There is also the question of ownership and how quickly that became dissipated and accountability weakened.
What we haven’t heard from the Right is, other than some vague deflection onto the Regulator a Right wing Govt was overseeing, what the lesson learned is and what they’d do differently. That’s the conversation that needs to happen isn’t it?
All this happened over a thirty year period just like the Horizon scandal with successive Conservative and Labour governments.
Is that an excuse for now not reflecting on what we need to do differently?
The Right been much more the purveyor of privatising Utilities and so it begs a bigger question for them.
I agree everyone needs to learn though.
Happy to agree that the privatisation of railways and water companies in particular was a big mistake.
Ken Clarke’s talents, other than to cause damage to the Conservative party, were always much over-rated.
He supported entry to the ERM, supported Maastricht but didn’t bother to read it, and as Chancellor produced little growth whilst raising taxes.
Happily he was rejected as Tory leader three times.
Realistically Clarke was always in the wrong party.
He certainly found himself increasingly in the wrong party. Arguably though he would have done better at the ballot box than some the Tories went with instead.
Whoever becomes becomes leader and whatever the Tories promise l don’t see a way back in my lifetime for the simple reason they don’t offer anything for younger generations and millions of older voters (like me) will never trust the party again.
For an opposition to be viable l think it will now have to separate itself from the (now toxic) Tory brand. Real shame as l like Kemi and Jenrick along with a few others and had hoped to never see another Labour government
millions of older voters (like me) will never trust the party again.
and as soon as Labour got into power they abolish the winter fuel allowance for most pensioners and look as they they are going to engage in all out war with both the pensioner class and the middle class who tend to be an older demographic.
The ECHR is the issue – for Brexit, immigration and sovereignty. Evans just another one who doesn’t get it and will no doubt play a part in these narratives that ensure further defeat.
“Learn from 2001”? It’s a space odyssey isn’t it?