It’s the big question of not just the current Conservative leadership election, but the next General Election: Can the Tories deal with Nigel Farage?
Those looking at the results from July’s General Election and the current opinion polls will speculate about the dramatic change if the Conservative and Reform Party shares are added together.
This includes those on the right, fearing the damage Labour could do over two terms in Government. Whilst those on the left nervously note Labour may have won big in seat numbers, but in vote share, they were behind what even Corbyn once achieved.
First, those who think this question could be resolved by sitting in a (literally) smoke-filled room and talking over a pint with Nigel Farage and Richard Tice, where we treat voters’ support like chips on a poker table and divide up seats to contest like 19th-century imperial powers allocating each other colonies, have spent too much time playing Westminster parlour games.
This challenge is not about dividing up jobs or allocating gongs, something some on the Conservative benches spent too much time worrying about pre-July.
Reform connected with a general dissatisfaction with mainstream politics, the direction of our country and a feeling of broken promises. A backroom deal is not going to resolve any of those.
Second, the idea silencing Nigel by banning him from working on broadcast media will prevent him from gaining votes is visible nonsense.
The left-wingers suggesting this should think about how an online podcast might work. It is also hard to imagine many voters in Clacton were unaware their prospective MP had a TV show. Conservative MPs should resist any such ban.
Provided paid employment is declared, it is for voters to decide if it is compatible with representing them, as Tottenham did with David Lammy and his LBC show.
There is no shortcut. No clever trick. No backroom deal, which will take away the hard graft needed to get support from 2024 Reform voters for a future Conservative Government.
Their support will need to be earned by accepting our shortcomings in the last parliament and then setting out a Conservative vision for the next parliament. Conservatives also cannot hope to lazily rely on an argument “Keir Starmer is worse than we are”.
This failed abysmally in July and not just due to Rishi Sunak’s inept and gaffe riddled election campaign.
Winter Fuel Allowance cuts, criminals offenders having been released early from prison, job losses across the steel sector and crazy moves to block use of our own oil & gas resources, have already hit Labour’s poll ratings.
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With further tax rises and job destroying policies to come, Labour could well sink even further in public opinion, leaving voters at the next General asking whether they really want another five years of Labour. Yet this will be followed by voters asking: “But would the alternative be better?”.
The next leadership of the Conservative Party must putin the hard work needed to ensure voters can answer “Yes”.
If voters conclude “Not really”, they will feel no compulsion to vote for a change of Government, again feeling free to protest vote for Reform or simply stay at home.
This means over the next four years the Conservative Party needs to do the hard graft of engagement with voters who felt they could no longer trust us (or for that matter Labour).
Not simply think a deal with Nigel and Reform will provide a shortcut or an easy way to combine two columns of split centre right vote, into one parliamentary majority.