In an Avalanche, No Snowflake Feels Responsible

A lot has been said and written dissecting the reasons for the spectacular Conservative Party’s demise from the dizzy heights of 2019’s eighty seat majority, to this month’s dramatic turnaround leaving us 170 seats adrift of Keir Starmer’s reinvigorated Labour Party.

Despite Starmer being a less than charismatic leader and the Labour Party spending the election campaign saying as little as possible about what policies they will enact now they govern the country, the Conservative Party came a very distant second. All is not lost, but we must take the time to learn the real lessons as to why we find ourselves here, and not rush to make rash judgements, praying that the public will somehow begin to listen to us again.

Part of the downfall was uncontrollable. Election cycles tend to be circular. A new government is swept into power with a ‘Change’ message, the next campaign is then fought on a ‘The job isn’t yet finished’ platform, third in the cycle (if you’re lucky) is ‘Don’t risk change’ and then inevitably you’re back to ‘Change’ again. You can, as in 2019, alter this pattern if external factors help disrupt the public mood. And indeed, during Rishi Sunak’s time as Prime Minister he attempted to position himself as both the ‘change’ and the ‘don’t risk change’ candidate - neither to any discernible impact. But more often than not, political tides rise and fall and this year the Conservative tide was definitely flowing firmly out of the harbour.

The political ebb tide, however, doesn’t account for everything that happened in 2024. 2010 was the most recent ‘Change’ election, which saw modest swings towards David Cameron’s Conservative Party, result in 96 seat gains, and the Coalition Government. The scale of the defeat in July 2024 was so seismic that there were clearly other factors at play too. 

My career in the Party dates back to 2010. I know many, particularly in the voluntary party and parliament date back a lot further than that, but through various unpredictable turns of events and some good fortune I have been a close witness to many of the biggest political events in recent years.

In December 2019, I was privileged to be one of only half a dozen people in No10 watching the exit poll with an exhausted, but triumphant Boris Johnson. The PMs cheers echoed around Whitehall as David Dimbleby proclaimed, “The Conservatives are the largest party”. And it was also a privilege, but very different mood, to be stood alone, a little over four and a half years later, with Rishi Sunak in a small room within Northallerton Leisure Centre as we learned the full extent of the 2024 General Election defeat.

Being one of only a handful of people who have worked at first hand with all five of the recent Conservative Prime Ministers, I have been doing a lot of thinking about what has gone so wrong, why the Party’s brand has tanked so stunningly and what we can do to rebuild and come back stronger.

When success is achieved, it is rightfully celebrated as a team effort. However, in the face of defeat, there is often a tendency to seek out a singular scapegoat to bear the brunt of the blame. This approach, while seemingly straightforward, overlooks the intricate interplay of factors that contribute to any outcome and will, I have no doubt, lead us to the wrong conclusions if we deploy this approach now. 

Since the election, I have spoken with dozens of sitting and former MPs, spads, senior volunteers and activists. With some exceptions, often, the kneejerk analysis falls into one of five things:

1.  Rishi was to blame.
2. It’s all Liz’s fault.
3. Boris did this to us.
4. Brexit
5. We lost touch with our voters and Reform took them.

All are right, and wrong.

In the complex tapestry of collective endeavours, the outcome is a reflection of the combined efforts of all involved.

As he acknowledged in Northallerton Leisure Centre in the early hours of 5th July and again as he departed Downing Street for the final time later that morning, of course Rishi Sunak has taken a sizable proportion of the responsibility for the election outcome. He was the captain of the ship when it crashed into the iceberg, and he controlled the election timetable, despite reservations from senior figures within the campaign and in his Cabinet. Much can be debated about the rationale for calling the election earlier than needed, catching people, including many in our own Party, by surprise.

A more fundamental decision than the election date was made 20 months earlier, just hours after Rishi Sunak took over as Prime Minister in October 2022, and it was a decision taken with the best of intentions. As he entered No10 for the first time as PM, Rishi chose to try and unify the party, acknowledging that although ‘mistakes were made’, he “admired her [Liz Truss’] restlessness to create change”. An alternative approach would have been to totally distance himself from Liz Truss’ premiership, doubling down on the messages he pushed during that summer’s leadership election, and reminding people that he resigned from Boris Johnson’s cabinet on a matter of principle. Instead, he nobly, but possibly naïvely he too had reaffirmed that he was ‘grateful to Boris Johnson for his incredible achievements’. A reflection of his generosity of spirit, yes, but possibly also a signal that his political instincts weren’t yet as honed as they would need to be for the battles ahead.

By failing to effectively cast himself as a fresh start after both Boris and Liz, Rishi arguable missed his biggest opportunity to rebuild the credibility of the Party brand after the damage caused over the years since the referendum. I know from those who were close to the discussions at the time, the judgement was that the Party and the country had been through months of upheaval, culminating in the death of The Queen and significant economic instability, and that the unifying messages trying to rebuild relationships was a greater priority. There was a judgement too that the new and relatively inexperienced PM wasn’t in a strong enough position to pick battles within the Conservative Party. In hindsight, there was not a moment during his premiership he was in a stronger position. The moment was missed, and the cracks were papered over.

This single decision made Labour’s potent ‘14 years of Tory chaos’ General Election attack line an effective one and undermined Rishi’s Clear Plan, Bold Action, Secure Future message for a tired electorate.

Another strategic misstep was in January 2023 when the PM announced his 5 Pledges. At the time, I was very supportive of setting out a clear, measurable set of goals, ‘judge me by my actions’ being key to Rishi’s brand. The 5 pledges, were however, so binary that when some were not met they hung as a noose around his neck and were too easy to use against him as he defended the Government’s record during the election campaign. Of the five, Stop the Boats was by far the most problematic in terms of both delivery and communication. In policy terms, it is almost impossible to stop all boats from making that trip and the phrase ensured that all immigration policy was seen through the lens of small boats. This was used by Nigel Farage’s insurgent Reform campaign to devastating effect.

Day after day desperate images of migrants attempting the perilous cross-Channel crossing in flimsy rafts were a visual example of Government failure to grip a potent political problem. The inability to secure the legal basis to get Rwanda flights off the ground served to amplify this failure to take control of the situation. I know how frustrating it was for those involved and how many hours were put in to try and solve the complex problems. There are certainly no easy answers – perhaps no answers at all and Labour’s ‘plan’ to smash the gangs is obviously vacuous nonsense, but at least it’s not binary.

Despite these two decisions, we still had 20 months in Government to try and convince the public that we had the right answers to the issues faced by the country. But from the moment Rishi Sunak became PM, the polls basically didn’t move. I can fully understand why he and his top team felt that as nothing was cutting through to voters, rolling the dice in an election it might focus minds, forcing people to switch onto politics and hear our arguments on tax and security.

For that to happen, however, we would need to run a faultless campaign and hope that one or more events derailed the Labour Party’s campaign to such an extent that they dropped the Ming vase onto the floor. No such events transpired, and Labour’s admirable ability to not cock up paved the way to their smooth victory. I know from personal experience how hard it is to deliver a long election campaign without dropping that vase. The Labour campaign machine should be commended for the way they navigated the obstacles that we tried to throw into their path. Conversely, it was our own avoidable gaffs such launching the campaign in the pouring rain, the D-Day debacle and betting scandal that sought to underline our own campaign efforts, and to coin a phrase from another recent PM, meant that people felt that ‘Nothing has changed’ under Rishi’s leadership.  

The rain was unfortunate and set the tone for the election coverage, but it was D-Day that had a particularly damaging effect. It not only played into Reform and Labour’s hands as they draped themselves in union flags and branded themselves the patriotic parties, it also came at a time when our £2000 tax attack line on Labour were starting to take hold. No matter how many quirky videos of flying red piggybanks we threw at social media, the issue of tax became far less potent from that point on.

Betting on the election too, although probably not major factor in shifting many people’s votes, served to suck the oxygen from our communication plans for days, with press conferences and interviews dominated by questions of who knew what, when, and what bets they had placed. This made it impossible to get our own messages across and it’s the Party who controls the message that dominates a Campaign.

Despite the column inches dedicated to both issues, neither D-Day nor betting saw any significant move in the headline poll numbers. There were, however, two big moments when the Conservative Party’s polling did take a nosedive. Whether or not you agreed with her mini budget, it’s inarguable that installing a new Prime Minister and then unceremoniously booting her out 45 days later, having ‘lost to a lettuce, crashed the economy and killed the queen’ only to appoint the person who she convincingly defeated only weeks earlier, did nothing for our credibility. The huge and unrecovered dip in the polls from that point until now was a hugely significant factor in the overall election defeat.

That period exposed the fissures within the Parliamentary party and membership which were still rocked by the turmoil of the end of Boris Johnson’s premiership. It was always going to be a challenging dichotomy when roughly two thirds of MPs were backers of Rishi Sunak’s leadership race, but Liz Truss was roundly selected by a similar proportion of the membership. The difference in opinion between Parliamentarians and Party members no doubt contributed to disquiet in constituencies across the country, undermining the ability to campaign locally and hampering grassroots fundraising efforts.

Conversely, Boris Johnson was elected Party leader with a two thirds majority by both MPs and Party members but this was undermined dramatically in the wake of Partygate, which was the other significant moment when our poll numbers tumbled. Not only did the scandal obliterate the credibility of Boris Johnson with large sections of the public, his departure weakened our ability to exploit our Levelling Up agenda, particularly in the Red Wall, but it also cut deep into the Tory party’s psyche as the rule abiding, ‘do the right thing, in the national interest’, party. This was particularly stark in the Blue Wall areas of the south and west of England where we are vulnerable to the Lib Dems. Added to this, the mishandling of the Chris Pincher affair ultimately destroyed the premiership of one of the most successful election winning leaders in the Party’s history.

People used to regularly say: ‘We don’t particularly like you Tories, but at least you’re good at running the country’. The mini budget and Partygate shifted that unrecoverably to a position of ‘We don’t like you and you’re incompetent’ - toxic for the Conservative Party.

The polarising Brexit years also did immeasurable damage to the Party. Forcing us to confront the realities of our broad church being fundamentally split on a totemic issue such as our membership of the EU saw dozens of MPs leave or be ejected from the Party, but also caused the haemorrhaging of tens of thousands of Party members, activists and donors, for opposing reasons at different times. This damage was caused in different ways over almost 8 years. David Cameron’s decision to suspend collective responsibility before the referendum meant that MPs got a taste for not following their party leader. Indeed, the appointment of  serial rebellers like Jacob Rees-Mogg to the Cabinet reinforced the view that the whips had no long-term power.

Brexit may have set up the environment upon which we won in 2019, but it was also absolutely another major contributing factor to the hollowing out of the activist base in our heartlands. It’s not a surprise that if you boot out totemic party figures such as Ken Clarke, Winston Churchill’s grandson and former cabinet ministers like Rory Stewart for not being true believers in Brexit, and then a couple of years later to lose swathes more MPs because they claim you’re no longer Brexity enough, you’re in for a tough time. The challenge for the next party leader will be to unite the broad Conservative coalition around a set of fundamental principles (likely to be around broad themes of love of country, belief in freedom of the individual, the family, fiscal discipline and compassion for the vulnerable) and then hold that coalition together as policy positions are developed. This, hopefully, will be easier to achieve in opposition and give the new leader space to think and plan but it will require a strong whipping operation and skilful use of political patronage.

Keir Starmer achieved this relatively effectively over 4 years and with only a mild purge of a few left wing renegade MPs. His skill was, however, in adeptly ensuring that Labour Party’s headquarters and key party figures were aligned as much as possible with his central aims. This meant diluting the role of Angela Rayner, the party’s elected Deputy Leader whilst installing key political allies such as Sue Gray and facilitating the return of former Blair and Brown staffers, providing him with experience and credibility at the centre of the Labour Party. I have no doubt that Starmer will find it far harder to keep a grip on his Party now they are in Government when decisions are real, the media focus is intense, and the job of Prime Minister is so all-consuming that you have almost no time spare to deal with seemingly minor internal party matters.

The last of the simplistic analyses that I have heard is that we lost touch with ‘our’ voters. I fundamentally disagree with the concept of ‘our’ voters. No party has the right to anyone’s votes – there are just voters. It’s too early to analyse the journey which Reform votes went on before putting their cross in the box of Nigel Farage’s latest political project, but what is for sure is they were not all life-long Conservative voters – although many undoubtedly were.

In reality, this was a patchwork election and the Conservative Party lost votes to all parties and many voters naturally disposed to our point of view stayed at home. Those voters who did switch their vote from Conservative to Reform will have done so for a myriad of reasons and I am concerned that if we rush to make judgements about why Reform got so many votes, we’ll be looking through the wrong end of the telescope and will come to the wrong conclusions. We must take our time to calmly analyse what happened and why before we attempt to offer up any solutions.

These are just some of the countless contributing factors which created the conditions for the defeat in the General Election. There are many more. Not least the pandemic with caused global disruption, but in crude political terms meant that swathes of newly elected Conservative MPs spent their first 18 months in office cooped up at home unable to bond with new colleagues, become gripped by the whips or form the cohesive team required to win.

Everyone associated with the party is, to a greater or lesser extent, culpable. In an avalanche, no snowflake feels responsible, but each of us in the broad Conservative family, to a greater or lesser extent, is a snowflake in that fall and must assume our share of responsibility.

To return a Conservative government as soon as possible and improve the country for everyone it is our shared responsibility to examine our defeat from multiple perspectives.

If I were to give advice to the candidates in the upcoming leadership election it would be to not rush to make bold proclamations in order to chase votes from the membership. This is going to be a much longer leadership election than we saw in 2019 or 2022 because we have the luxury of time. I think it would be a misstep to be overly gung-ho at this stage because the mountain we need to climb is too steep.

Clearly the next Leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party has a huge task on their hands. I see the rebuilding in three distinct phases.

The first task will be to rebuild Party. This will take time. It won’t be eye-catching, but it will be vital to forge strong foundations, cohesion and morale on which to build. They must reinforce the idea that everyone is working towards a common goal and that setbacks are a natural part of that journey. They will have to build a tight team, reminiscent of what David Cameron and George Osborne achieved between 2005 and 2010 with a mindset that fosters resilience and determination. From that nucleus we can start to re-build the party infrastructure, enthuse and empower current and new members, sharing the responsibility which will pave the way for continuous improvement in our campaigning, communication and policy development and ultimately the long-term success of our Party and country.

Another key part of this rebuilding phrase is to build a fresh election winning CCHQ machine. The Conservative and Unionist Party is the most prolific election winning force in UK history, but this is not a birth right. It is important to reassess the Party’s rules, how power and influence is devolved to associations as much as possible, but that maintains a grip where the local party is so decimated that almost imperial power resides in a handful of people. Too often, the Party’s membership base has wilted to such an extent that it neither functions to win elections, nor to raise much needed campaign funds. Is it going to be possible to achieve both these important functions concurrently, or is a new model of Party structure needed? We’ll have to wait and find out, but I would not rule out a fundamental look at the Party’s constitution and leave no stone unturned.

As much as our activist base is threadbare, so is our donor base. Big money donors generally want to be part of winning Partys. In the past we have raised extraordinary amounts of money to fight elections. The new leader will have to convince our Party’s big backers that they have what it takes to win, whilst simultaneously broadening the donor base and embracing new and innovative fundraising approaches.

We should not pressure the new leader to make rapid changes. We should embrace the time to fundamentally review what it means to be a Conservative in the UK. Explore what differentiates us from other Parties.

We must identify what core set of beliefs makes the UK Conservative and Unionist Party unique. Rediscover what unites us and build from there. Only once that work is done, should we move on.

Stage two will be to rebuild the Party’s image in the eyes of the public. The Conservative Party brand ranks amongst Hermes Delivery and the ill-fated Fyre Festival and it will take time before the public are willing to accept the Party as a party of government. Some cosmetic changes may be required, I wouldn’t discount a new logo, the addition of a set of brand values or missions, rooted in our constitution, but a more fundamental look is also required.

The final stage will be to rebuild public trust. Trust is crucial for success in today's political world and regaining public trust is essential for rebuilding our reputation. Once we have achieved that only then will we will be in a position to start putting forward a fresh, modern policy platform. This is an opportunity for our brand to speak with one voice and demonstrate its core values and we must seize that opportunity.

During these rebuilding stages, it will still be vital to hold the Government to account. We have some immensely talented members in the shadow cabinet, and I have no doubt that they will perform well, but only once the foundations are in place will we have earnt the right to present our Party as a credible alternative to the Government.

I believe that this is possible within one term, but it may well be two terms before we are in a position to return to Government with a solid Conservative majority. With that in mind, as we approach our latest opportunity to choose our Party leader, we must focus on becoming popular in the long-term, not get drawn into short-term populism, not reacting to the social media clamour of the hour. We must be bold and not fall into the trap of being too rational. The danger of being sensible is that we end up back where we started. The pace of social acceleration is fast and will only continue to get faster.

Being able to adapt and embrace those changes will be the key to success. It will be incumbent on all of us to ensure that our leadership choice is not based on what makes us feel good in the short term, but based on who we believe has the skill, patience and character to raise the phoenix from the ashes so that we’re one day able to govern the country with a modern brand of compassionate conservatism long into the future.