In May last year, Nigel Farage declared that Reform UK was becoming “a brand-new Conservative movement”. Soon after, his party won a record four million votes at the general election, resulting in five MPs, while the Conservatives were handed their worst-ever result at the ballot box.
The Tories now have a new leader, Kemi Badenoch, but are still struggling to revive the party and see off the threat of Reform. Both Reform and Farage are polling higher than the Tories and Badenoch.
A number of commentators and Tory figures have suggested an alliance between Reform and the Tories could be the boost the Conservatives need.
So do the Tories need to work with Nigel Farage? Farage-fan Julie Burchill, former Conservative chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng and pollster Holly Day give their perspective.
Of course, the situation Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch finds herself in is worse than what Cameron faced at the time. The political scene is far more complicated, more fraught with anxiety and danger. Brexit, Donald Trump and his tariffs, the war in Ukraine and the Covid-19 pandemic have all made the world of the 2020s infinitely more difficult.
There is now the threat from the populist right. In the UK that is in the form of Nigel Farage and Reform UK, who are above the Tories and just behind Labour in the opinion polls. Farage’s party are the favourite to win the Runcorn and Helsby by election in May at the bookies. Reform contributed to the rout of the Conservatives at the last general election by effectively splitting the centre-right/right vote. The opposite happened in 2019, when Farage stood down his candidates in Tory-held seats and helped Boris Johnson win a landslide victory.
Commentators, MPs and even shadow ministers have debated about Nigel Farage “being let into” the Conservative Party. This has always seemed to me to be absurd. I know Nigel Farage. I don’t believe he has ever had the slightest desire to join the Conservatives. To him, they are the real enemy, not Labour.
My view is that, after a dire defeat last year, the Conservatives need to work out what they represent. What principles or values do they espouse? What do they stand for?
The Tories will always rely on their time-honoured tradition of regicide or plotting against their leaders and, finally, removing them. Too often than not, however, the Tories have substituted one bad leader for another who was even worse
Defining themselves against Farage, one way or the other, seems particularly hopeless. It is merely reactive and would imply that Farage is the true dynamic force, while the Tories would simply be reacting to whatever Farage, the Sun King of British politics, said or demanded.
Badenoch can articulate a vision which is independent and resonant, if given time. It won’t happen overnight, so the knee-jerk Tory reflex to ditch leaders when improvements don’t happen instantaneously could be her greatest impediment.
Badenoch does, however, need to define her own political personality. Trying to pretend that she is the same thing as Nigel Farage would be the worst thing for her to do.
Kwasi Kwarteng is a former Conservative MP. He served as chancellor between September and October 2022 under Liz Truss
Perspectives
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