From time to time the party now known as the Conservative and Unionist party has done badly – very badly.
*
In 1828-32, the old Tory collapsed as what some historians call the British “ancien regime” itself collapsed with Roman Catholic emancipation and the Reform Act of 1832.
Relatively moderate Tories, “Canningites” like Melbourne and Palmerston, went off to join with the Whigs.
But the Tories were back in government by 1834, and rebranded as by Peel as “Conservatives” they had an overall majority by 1841.
*
In 1845-46, the Conservatives collapsed as the Corn Laws were repealed (the “Brexit” of its day.
Relatively moderate Conservatives, “Peelites” like Gladstone, went off to ally themselves with the Whigs.
But the Conservatives were back in government by 1852, and after reinvention by Disraeli they had an overall majority by 1874.
*
In 1905-06, the Conservatives – now allied with the Liberal Unionists – collapsed, in good part because of splits on tariff reform and imperial preference (the “Brexit” of its day).
Relatively moderate Conservatives, “Free Traders” such as the young Winston Churchill, went off to join the Liberals.
But the Conservatives (who formally fused in 1912 with the Liberal Unionists to create the current Conservative and Unionist party) were back in government by 1916, and (posing as a national coalition) they had an overall majority by 1918.
*
And in 1997, the Conservatives lost badly, in good part to splits on the European issue following Maastricht and Black Wednesday (the “Brexit” of its day.
There were a number of defections of (now forgotten) Conservative politicians to the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties.
But the Conservatives were back in office by 2010, and they had an overall majority by 2015.
*
The four examples above have common themes – including the facts that the Tory-Unionist-Conservatives-National Coalition managed to get back into office again, before winning an overall majority at a later election.
There is also the example of 1945, where a heavy Conservative defeat was followed by taking office again by 1951.
*
But there is one theme which is different, and which may make what happens after the imminent general election in 2024 different.
After each of the defeats referred to above, the defeated rump of the party pretty much remained. It did not go off to create a new party to their right.
And so as the pendulum of politics in time moved away from those who had defeated that rump, they were able to take advantage.
Of course, they also often took the time and effort to rebrand or reinvent themselves. And they were able to take advantage of working with others, such as the Liberal Unionists after 1886 and the other parties in national coalitions from 1918 to 1935.
But they never had to deal with a party trying to take their place as the main party opposing the more left-wing party.
*
Here an analogy may be with the Liberals, who last won an overall majority in 1906 – and were then after 1906 outpaced by the rising Labour party.
All because the Tory-Unionist-Conservatives have come back each time before, it does not mean that they necessarily will do again.
*
The “first past the post” electoral system tends to favour established parties with their established brand names – and tribal loyalty and voters’ muscle memory will tend to do the rest.
As such, the Conservatives have an advantage over the Reform party now trying to outpace it to the right.
It may well be that the Reform party do no better than flash-in-the-pan(ic) parties like the “New Party” of 1931-32 and the SDP of 1981-88.
But when the electoral system finally shifts against a party, it shifts – as the Liberals found out after 1906.
And until and unless there is fundamental electoral reform, the Conservatives not only face heavy defeat (which they have survived many times before) but also a spirited attempt by Reform to be their replacement.
*
So, if as widely predicted there is a heavy defeat for the Conservatives on 4 July 2024, will they soon bounce back as they (and their previous incarnations) did after 1832, 1846, 1906, 1945 and 1997?
Or will this be their equivalent to what happened to the Liberals in 1906?
***
Comments Policy
This blog enjoys a high standard of comments, many of which are better and more interesting than the posts.
Comments are welcome, but they are pre-moderated and comments will not be published if irksome, or if they risk derailing the discussion.
More on the comments policy is here.
The Vampire Party, in fact – until someone finds a silver bullet
But if that Vampire goes, it will be replaced by a Vampire to its right.
(And silver bullets are more werewolf lore.)
Electoral reform in the shape of PR should be the silver bullet. Labour will live to regret it if they again fail to do it. The union is in the last chance saloon.
With proportional representation, Farage would have been in parliament and probably in coalition with the Tories. PR amplifies minority parties and disenfranchises voters who see the government negotiated post-election. In Northern Ireland and Israel, it has empowered more extreme voices.
Labour would be foolish to introduce it.
It depends what sort of PR. The Israeli system is entirely proportional with no constituencies. Other polities, like France or Spain, have entirely different voting systems.
And we still have coalitions here. They are ususally within the Labour and Conservative parties, where different political views are yoked together.
What is more, Farage being in parliament will decrease the amount of publicity he gets. He won’t be the leader of a loud pressure group. He will be the leader of the 5th or 6th party in parliament, and he won’t get nearly as much airtime.
FPTP is not doing much to diminish more extreme voices.
Until the SNP’s and Tory Party’s respective implosions, Labour was looking as if it would never get into power without some form of PR.
PR would certainly give a platform to extremist views (of either side) and would lead to a fracturing and rebuilding of consensus. You have picked two of the most outlier states to support your argument.
Dozens of countries have PR without outcomes seen in NI or Israel, which have their own peculiar historical and religious contexts.
Some sort of PR would mean that I, for one, would be able to cast a vote that actually might mean something. Thinking about it while writing this comment, I’ve realised that in nearly 4 decades of voting, I’ve never voted for a successful UK parliamentary candidate. No wonder turnouts are as low as they are.
I agree that Labour would be foolish to introduce it without consensus. But I don’t think PR is in itself foolish (or scary).
Northern Ireland and Israel are not good examples, as both are settler societies with very deep religious and ethnic divides and conflicts over land, which generate extremist politics whatever the electoral system. The hardliners in Northern Ireland have had no difficulty getting elected to Westminster under FPTP, which favours small parties with strong local support bases, (though of course the Republicans don’t take up their seats there).
I am a lifelong believer in (and campaigner for) electoral reform. But I find it both problematic and fundamentally wrong to support it – or indeed to object to it – on the basis of the result you expect it to deliver.
If people want to vote for hard right or far right representatives, then they will do so. If they wish to vote further left, they will do so. An electoral system should not and realistically cannot be set up to provide a particular result.
The only argument in favour of electoral reform that holds water, and the one I’ve stood by for decades, is that in a democracy, giving voters a meaningful and equal vote is the right thing to do.
That very much depends on what Labour want. FPTP keeps electing governments with only a minority of the vote. If Labour wants to get into power in future as a sole party, they would be very foolish to get rid of FPTP.
On the other hand, if Labour cares about democracy and admits that it’s grossly unfair that one party could get a majority when they get well short of a majority of the votes, then they should switch to a better system which is much more proportional.
A scenario.
N. Farage is elected as a Reform MP on 4th July.
On 5th July (or shortly after)
> N. Farage defects to Conservative Party
> R. Sunak resigns (or is deposed) as leader of the Conservative Party
Following the normal Tory Party leadership election process, N. Farage is put up as one of the two canditates for selection by the members and is appointed leader by the time of the Conservative Party conference.
In this scenario the Conservative does ‘bounce back’, but under a very different management.
This appears to be Farage’s plan. Reduce the Tories to a rump, get elected in Clacton and then affect a reverse takeover. It does depend on a suicidal Tory leader allowing him to join the party, but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen.
It’s also hard to see Farage spending up to five years as Leader of the Opposition. He would probably find it restrictive, tedious and thankless. But maybe he finds a Tice to stand in until the next election.
Not an impossible scenario and the takeover of the Tory party already espoused by Farage. The question is whether that would result in the extremity of the Right’s fulcrum swing?
The accepted wisdom is that Labour fishing in the same pond as the Tories and Reform for voters since April 2020 will not lose voters to Reform.
Perhaps not between now and polling day, but as Labour can never satisfy this group, a subset of the white working class, to which party will they go next?
“There are notionally scores of seats in play at the next election, presaging a potentially seismic shift in the political landscape. But both of the main English parties have their sights set on a narrow slice of the population. Deborah Mattinson, Starmer’s director of strategy, calls them “hero voters” – the ones who swing directly from Tory to Labour, effectively having double the impact of anyone who moves from a third party. The profile of these voters is Brexit-supporting, older (but not retired), economically precarious, socially conservative, white, not in big cities and without higher education.
The anxieties and prejudices of those people exert a magnetic pull on national debate to the exclusion of other voters.”
Red wall Brexiters will be the ‘hero voters’ of the next election.
The rest of us are just walk-on players.
Rafael Behr
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/mar/29/red-wall-brexiters-hero-voters-election-partisan?
I would not go so far as to say the heroes are my people, but we are on more than nodding terms and of roughly the same age.
They will never get the ‘good’ jobs of which Labour speaks, because they have not, most of them, ever taken the help made available to them over decades.
They are of a generation who were told they did not need to do well at school, because your Dad, another relative or a friend would get you a job where they worked.
I think it is rather instructive to note that the graduate middle class who came up with the stereotype singled out not having a degree as a defining factor.
I imagine they rarely come across people who are not only suspicious of formal education and training, but in some cases hostile towards it.
I would guess, based on the experience of myself and Civil Service colleagues over the years most of the heroes left school at 16 and have avoided the chance of post 16 education or training ever since.
I did two spells of duty in an inner city Jobcentre in Washwood Heath, Birmingham and was born into the aspirational working class, but unlike Hugh Muir in this article about the heroes he experienced growing up, I am white.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/dec/14/white-working-class-boys-unlucky-ofsted
Were Labour ever able to persuade a business to build a steelworks at Saltley Gate, the hallowed ground of miners’ strikes past, then the heroes would be the last people they would want to employ.
Sir Keir and Rachel Reeves are arguably the most right wing Labour leadership since 1931.
I think Tories will be able to take a great deal of consolation from the fact that the last time a Labour Party as right wing as that of 2024 took office Labour needed World War Two for it to again look credible as a party of government.
Ramsay MacDonald’s right of centre Labour Party with its unemployment benefit cutting agenda and Philip Snowden’s policy of neither a borrower nor a lender be, was so successful in Government, that it entered the 1931 General Election with 288 seats and left it with 52.
Ramsay MacDonald who had split the Labour Party just before the 1931 General Election was not numbered amongst the 52, but was leader of 13 National Labour MPs.
Mosley had resigned from the Labour Party before the General Election to found the New Party, taking with him five other Labour MPs in February 1931.
In December of the previous year, 15 Labour MPs had signed the Mosley Memorandum.
Prominent amongst them was Aneurin Bevan.
There is a belief on the other side of Sir Keir’s GTTO coalition from the heroes that Labour will be different if it wins which seems unlikely so perhaps no one who voted Labour may be particularly satisfied with the party by 2029.
John “Cruddas concludes by warning that without more connections to the party’s traditions and values, and a clearer offer to the electorate, an election win could bring real dangers and even existential risk. “Without such reconciliation, a party of labour could be destroyed by victory.” ”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/dec/30/keir-starmer-detached-labour-party-jon-cruddas
The current Labour leadership eschew from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs in preference of having Angela Rayner talk up trickle down.
History does not repeat itself, but sometimes it rhymes.
There is a certain irony in that Ramsay MacDonald, the Sir Keir of his day, paved the way for George Lansbury, the Jeremy Corbyn of his day.
It took Clement Attlee and the experience of Coalition Government during World War Two to reunite the Labour Party across the political spectrum, making the party in the process a credible party of Government that went on to win the 1945 General Election on a broadly Socialist programme.
I’m not completely convinced that the Tories ever actually recovered after their narrow escape in 1992 – it’s just that they saw what happened to Labour a decade earlier and didn’t split and as a result, the eurosceptic right became sufficiently entrenched to lead to everything that happened later.
(I mean, I am happy to concede that 2019 was a huge win, but even at the time people were expressing doubts about its stability.)
As David himself commented in another place not long after the 2019 General Election, Boris Johnson’s Tory Party only made a net gain of 300,000 votes on Theresa May’s performance in 2017.
The real story of 2019 was Jeremy Corbyn losing Labour between 2017 and 2019:
1,200,000 voters to not voting, split 50/50 between Leave and Remain
600,000 voters apiece to the Liberal Democrats (100% Remain) and the Tories (100% Leave)
300,000 voters to the Brexit Party (100% Leave).
Boris Johnson’s gain from Labour was offset by losing 300,000 voters (100% Remain) to the Liberal Democrats.
I suspect we do not hear much about those figures because I do not think any pollster predicted them.
A comparative point, using the same electoral system: after “Canada 1993”, the Canadian Conservative party ultimately decided to merge with the more right wing Reform Party. This was in fact the second time around, as the Conservative party had previously merged with the rural populist Progressive party (although not so much a RW party IIRC) back in the 1920s. And more recently the Conservative party of Alberta merged with a RW breakaway party after the shock of losing office for the first time in 40+ years in 2015.
The UK has no hope of becoming the 21st century modern mid-size European democratic state it should be, until it reforms the FPTP system, a sine qua non for much deeper root and branch political, constitutional, economic and social reforms that are necessary and so badly needed, if we are going to find and be comfortable with our much reduced place in the world. It is an inevitable readjustment from being a huge maritime empire but one which we have been unwilling to address for a century or more.
Fundamental electoral reform is my preference. Oppositional two party politics is very unfit for purpose. New thinking is needed as to what form reformed governments, parliaments and electoral processes should take.
I have always believed that the most significant driver behind the demise of the Liberals was not anything to do with policy or personality, but the expansion of the franchise coupled with (as in 1945) a desire for progressive renewal after the war.
Many of those who voted Labour to second and eventually first place in the 1920s either were unable to vote in 1910 and the 1906 landslide, or were in constituencies so unbalanced that their vote was near worthless. And for most of those voters, there was an obvious attraction in voting for Labour candidates – working class folk like themselves – rather than the middle and upper class Liberals.
I’m not sure there is a historical lesson to be learnt from how the Liberals fell away. Their death was a product of circumstances, of a one-off change that they couldn’t resist.
Maastricht was definitely the Brexit of its day. In fact it was what really mobilised “the bastards” against Major and thus laid the foundations for it. However Black Wednesday was more like the Truss mini-budget of its day, caused by the policy to link sterling to the ERM. The aim of that was to reduce inflation, not get closer to the EU. Politicians on all sides saw low inflation among ERM countries and thought joining the ERM would magically give us low inflation too. All it did was force the Treasury to support the pound to maintain it’s sinking value against the DM and allow speculators, notably George Soros, to make a killing betting against sterling.
I don’t think the Tory Party will self destruct if the election goes as badly for it as predicted. It may split (as the old Liberal Party did) but I don’t think the Reform Party is popular enough to take part or all of it over. While it has is a populist hard line immigration policy, that is counter-balanced by an extremely unpopular health policy.
Oh I do so hope they are consigned to history sadly though this might be a case of better the devil you know rather than hope reform take over as that would be worse
Policy-wise or in ideological terms, the current Labour party are closer to the Tory party of 2010 than they are to the Labour party of 1997 (certainly any earlier). Just as UKIP infiltrated the Conservatives to enact Brexit, so Tory Ideology has made significant inroads within Labour to the extent that in practical terms there is no need for a Conservative party as it might have been understood a few years ago.