Out in no-man’s land the sound and tone of ‘battle’ on the right is starting to shift

I mentioned to Nigel Farage a fortnight ago that it was odd feeling to have ended up “in opposing trenches” firing pot shots at each other these days. I’m not sure what he thought but what he said with a smile was:

“You should come over. mine’s a better trench”.

To be fair to him he absolutely has to stand on his expressed positions, even in private. We’ve often ended up discussing things in these terms because of a shared passion for the history of the First World War.

No, I won’t be crossing no man’s land. To lose one Editor of ConservativeHome to Reform UK might be considered unfortunate to lose two looks like carelessness.

When I venture into no man’s land however I find people I very much recognise and talk to quite regularly. I don’t always agree but I definitely listen to them.

They are mainly – still angry and disappointed former Conservatives, who felt completely let down by the party’s last stint in Government finding them weak rudderless and incompetent. They’ve seen people cross to Reform and yet deep down aren’t convinced the Farage show really does have the answers, or the ability to do anything but protest, and aren’t convinced on some of the economic stuff or the characters he has around him.

Before either side get angry – too much of that in this arena as I will come on to – those are not my views, but a cocktail of many a conversation with these voters about both sides. The no man’s landers, sometimes shift slightly one way or another but don’t feel the need, or in some cases the desire, to make a choice, yet.

These dug in positions have been reinforced ever since hostilities really broke out at the beginning of this year with a concerted push from the Reform front trying to overrun what they saw as still weak Conservative lines. They still think those lines are terminally weak but the whole operation in January was inspired by the fact despite filling 2025  with shouts that the Tories were dead, their trenches abandoned, “it’s over”, the people in Reform HQ knew that it wasn’t, and Badenoch’s position as leader had solidified in a way they hadn’t anticipated. There was frustratingly for them, still fight in them and especially under their new general.

By January of this year, their mole inside at the top was in discussions about defection. There was a four month run to May’s local elections. These have to – and probably will – establish a bridge head for Reform and their building of a national spread of local party structures. It was the right move in terms of timing to try and bully the Tories off the pitch if they could. That’s definitively their plan.

Either by vote, by gaslight, by out sloganing, convince both Tory and electorate to cede the field.

I’m not criticising here. Tactically it’s what I would have done.

Badenoch and Farage don’t like each other much, or more accurately find dealing with each other tricky. She was the leader he didn’t really want them to choose, and he finds her unnecessarily abrasive and sub-par. She thinks he’s fundamentally a charlatan and an  unserious bar room blowhard. That’s not a combination that makes for constructive discussions.

Both have long ruled out any chance whatsoever of any ‘deal’.

However I have recently had a number of occasions, away from the ‘bubble’, or the arenas of political combat, where solid Conservative supporters and Reform supporters and yes, no man’s landers have been gathered together. They’ve been talking . I’ve been listening to them talking to each other. Lots of them.

Not the angry back and forth of online skirmishing but looking each other in the whites of their eyes, and talking. Talking for some time, and that’s the key here.

Let’s talk about anger first. Lots of it about. It’s where a lot of people, regardless of alliegence, start in this discussion.

Frustrated anger about years of supporting a party that you feel let you down badly, and it feels raw, almost like betrayal. Anger that when Starmer is so awful as PM, Ed Davey is comically ineffective and Zack Polanksi is not just comic but actually dangerous, Reform still want to give the Tories, and just the Tories, a kicking. Anger at a stubborn refusal from die hard Reformers that the Tories are under new leadership that has changed them. Anger at Tories for looking down on Reform, and thereby insulting their voters.

Anger, like that which has spread across the country, and applies to a lot of things, that there’s nothing they can do about this fight, except watch, or sigh, and join in.

And then, when they’d got it out of their systems, you started to hear the notes of a different tune. And what struck me was how similar those notes were, whoever produced them.

They all agreed the Starmer project must be stopped for the good of the UK. That the Greens might say they loath Labour but if they could drag a wounded Labour way over to the left and get co-operation with a party sans the Starmer project then they could do a deal that kept Tories and Reform out and the whole socialist doom circus rolling on.

At this point there was an up bubbling of the old battle cries – ‘that’s why you have to move out of the way, stand down and let us advance’ – awkward use of that word in this context but we’ll leave that. But it was a brief moment because  now these two sides – and undecideds were talking, another truth, I have long predicted, came out: a recognition that ultimately neither Tories nor Reform are going to be able to kill the other off.

They can keep slugging it out if they wish but it will be a wearisome watch because it won’t work and the Left will love it, a satisfaction to be honest I’m not inclined to give them.

So where did this 1914 style meeting in the middle end up?

An acceptance, and just an acceptance, that one and the other might not be the enemy here. That, whether they want it or not, at some point it is likely electoral maths and right-leaning voters will demand they have, at least, ‘a conversation’. And, and I was surprised at this, it was probably better to have a ceasefire soon, and if necessary, ignore each other for a bit.

Timing is everything. Ahead of the local elections – and haven’t they just zoomed into stark focus – you won’t hear a single thing like the above coming out of any spokesperson, leader or candidate. Battle is raging on all fronts, it’s just when it’s quiet, and away from the clash, you can now start to hear if you listen closely, as I do, the sound of how things might play out.

Not yet, but at some point.

Peter Franklin’s column last week came in just as I had had these conversations. It’s worth reading again.

There is no inevitability about any kind of deal. There are a range of strong arguments on both sides for not doing any ‘deal’ or ‘pact’ or whatever. If either side believes it can go it alone if it just holds out, they absolutely will do that. Neither party needs to do this now, there is still a long way to go until 2028/29.

But there’s a shift in the debate, for those who are willing to have it. More are, and mercifully without the wearisome ‘screaming’ at each other that marked the start of hostilities.