Tory Party chairman Richard Fuller will today admit to having “given Reform UK oxygen” in a grovelling apology following the Conservatives’ catastrophic 2024 General Election result.
Fuller, who held onto his North Bedfordshire seat by 5,414 votes, will use his keynote speech at the ICC in Birmingham to apologise to activists after the Tory Party was reduced to just 121 MPs on 24 per cent of the vote.
The result, worse than Sir John Major’s in 1997, was confounded by Nigel Farage’s Reform UK as the populist party returned five MPs and received 14 per cent of the vote.
In his apology, Fuller is expected to say: “I am profoundly sorry to you, the members of the Conservative Party.”
He added: “What matters now is that we learn from those difficult days and draw inspiration and insights on how we rebuild.”
The 62-year-old, who previously held the seat of Bedford from 2010 to 2017, is also expected to concede the need to win back supporters from Reform UK.
“We gave them oxygen,” he will say. “We gave them space.”
However, Fuller will likely argue that the next Tory Party leader will win back supporters lost to both Reform UK and the Liberal Democrats.
The Tory Party remains split on whether to focus on retrieving the 25 per cent of 2019 Tory voters who backed Reform UK on July 4 or the seven per cent of those who instead supported the Liberal Democrats.
It is difficult to fully know whether Reform UK voters would support the Tory Party again.
However, given almost 80 per cent of the populist party’s voters backed Boris Johnson, it is reasonable to believe that more than 100 seats were lost due to a Reform UK candidate contesting the seat.
Tory leadership hopeful Robert Jenrick is regarded as the key candidate to watch in the fight for the right.
The ex-Immigration Minister, who vowed to put Reform UK “out of business”, appeared to outflank Reform UK by announcing plans for mass deportations of illegal immigrants.
Despite hemorrhaging support to Farage, the marginal numbers who instead sided with the Liberal Democrats ensured Sir Ed Davey returned 72 MPs to the House of Commons.
Writing in The Times ahead of the first day of conference, former Prime Minister Theresa May claimed that the Tories had spent “too long tacking to the right in order to appease potential Reform voters” and “forgot that we are not a right-wing party but a centre-right party”.
She added “Just as Ingebrigtsen was focused on Kerr and failed to see that his action against him would open up other threats, so the Conservative Party has been focused on Reform and failed to see the threat from the Liberal Democrats – losing 60 seats to them at the election.”
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JK Rowling weighs in on Duffield debacle – ‘Keep her name out your mouth!’
JK Rowling clashes with Labour MP as Duffield’s damning resignation batters StarmerPA
JK Rowling has clashed with Labour MP Nadia Whittome over Rosie Duffield’s decision to resign the Labour whip with “immediate effect”.
Duffield, 53, penned a blistering resignation letter to Sir Keir Starmer, accusing the Prime Minister of being embroiled in a “sleaze” scandal and enacting “cruel policies”.
Rowling, a longstanding ally of Duffield and fellow women’s rights activist, took to social media to blast Whittome after the Nottingham East MP criticised Duffield.
Whittome, who differs with Duffield on issues of gender, said: “No matter your views on her stated reasons for quitting, Rosie Duffield has made a political career out of dehumanising one of the most marginalised groups in society.
She added: “She should never have been allowed the privilege of resigning. Labour should have withdrawn the whip long ago.”
Weighing in on the row, Rowling wrote: “Rosie Duffield was one of the few female Labour politicians with the guts to stand up for vulnerable women and girls, while self-satisfied numbskulls like you fought to give away their rights and spaces. TL;DR Keep her name out of your mouth.”