David Gauke: The direction the Conservatives will be tempted towards to seek salvation is not the way they need to go

David Gauke is a former Justice Secretary and was an independent candidate in South-West Hertfordshire at the 2019 general election.

Politics is volatile and unpredictable.  After the local elections four years ago, Labour looked destined for a fifth general election defeat; the Tories were dominant.  It did not turn out that way.  But the scale of the collapse in Conservative support last week, and the emergence of two parties capable of winning over different parts of their voters, leaves the party in existential peril.

Conservative election victories have been based on achieving a broad coalition of support.

Traditionally, the largest element has been the middle classes who voted Tory on economic grounds.  They were the voters who had most to lose from the higher taxes and inflation which they associated with Labour governments.  Suspicious of extremism, often pragmatic in approach, quietly patriotic, many were more small ‘c’ conservative than large ‘C’ Conservative, but they ensured that Tory Party was the dominant force in prosperous parts of our cities, and the wealthier shires.

There has also always been an element of the Tory support that was more nationalistic and authoritarian in outlook.  Once upon a time, the cause was the Empire or opposition to membership of the Common Market.  Opposing immigration was always a priority.  It would a gross simplification to describe this as purely a working class Toryism, but it was a viewpoint that had an appeal beyond the conservative middle classes.

At least since the mid-2000s, our politics realigned as this later group became larger and more powerful.  Working class voters who shared these values but had remained loyal to Labour started to drift away from their traditional party.  The economic arguments of the past were behind us, the social liberalism of the much of the left alienated Labour-supporting social conservatives.  In parts of the country like the North Midlands (Staffordshire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire), the Conservatives performed particularly strongly.

Then came Brexit.  A new political geography was exposed.  The country was not divided by economic security but social values and educational background.  This was disruptive for both the main political parties but in the 2019 General Election, it was the Conservatives who benefited.  Some of their traditional prosperous voters went elsewhere, but not many (thanks to Jeremy Corbyn).  But the socially authoritarian leave-voters backed Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party in very large numbers.  The Red Wall – including many seats in the North Midlands – turned blue.

The Tories had a broad coalition, but it was too fragile a coalition to survive the vicissitudes of governing in turbulent times (or, to be more accurate, governing badly in turbulent times).  The realities of Brexit underwhelmed its supporters and confirmed to its detractors that its advocates were not serious people.  More generally, promises made were not promises kept.  The only grounds on which the broad Tory coalition found agreement was that the party had failed to meet the standards of integrity and competence that could reasonably have been expected.  The Conservatives suffered their worst general election defeat in 2024, and now their worst local election defeat.

The worst case scenario for the Tories is that authoritarian voters back Reform, middle class voters back the Liberal Democrats, leaving the Tories with nothing.  As far as these elections are concerned, it is already happening.  The North Midland counties now all have Reform-controlled county councils; the Liberal Democrats are the dominant party in many southern counties.

This leaves the Conservative Party with a choice to make.  It could argue that to obtain a Parliamentary majority, it needs to recover a broad coalition – to win in both Berkhamsted and Bolsover.  This is true, and appears to be the current strategy.  But it is also unrealistic.  Obtaining a majority at the next General Election is surely beyond the Conservative Party’s reach (its situation is much more serious than Labour’s was four years ago).   Attempting to appeal to such contrasting voters will only continue to result in leaving everyone dissatisfied and unclear as to where the party stands.

The second option is to redouble its efforts to appeal to the authoritarian voters.  Harden its position on immigration, wage war on the woke, react with fury to any closer relationship with the EU.

The most obvious political flaw with such a strategy is that the voters to whom this will appeal already have a political party to vote for – Reform – led by a more skilled communicator – Nigel Farage – than anyone the Tories have to offer.

Until now, the argument that the Tories have used against voting Reform (and an argument that had some success in the 2024 General Election) is a vote for Reform is a wasted vote that lets in Labour.  After last week, that argument has much less force and, in many places, could be applied against the Tories and in favour of Reform.  An approach of saying that Reform is right but do not vote for them is bound to fail.

There may be Conservatives who aspire to win back the Red Wall, but it is delusional to think this is remotely likely at the next election.  In reality, the Tories are unlikely to come second – let alone first – in any Red Wall seat at the next election.

This leaves prioritising the recovery of its traditional heartlands – the Blue Wall – at the expense of the Liberal Democrats.  One should not, however, underestimate the challenges this would involve, given that Lib Dem MPs are bedding themselves into traditional Tory seats, and will now be aided by a new cohort of councillors.

More fundamentally, for the past decade, the Conservative Party has done much to antagonise the moderate voters needed to win these seats.

It would need to demonstrate that it has fundamentally changed.  It needs to restore its reputation for economic credibility, which means that it cannot deny the damage done by Brexit – and support measures to mitigate that damage by moving closer to the EU.  It should be willing to be very critical of Donald Trump.  And it needs to wholeheartedly make the case against Reform and Farage not on tactical grounds – “vote Reform, get Labour” – but because it is a very bad idea to get Reform at all.  This means, for example, that it cannot give the impression that the real objective is to form a post-election pact between the Tories and Reform.

It is a strategy I favour because it would result in the Conservative Party advocating the policies and values that I believe would be good for the country – a competitive and open market economy, fiscal responsibility, international co-operation, strengthening institutions such as the rule of law – rather than aping the wrong-headedness of the populist right.

But as a political strategy it is the least worst option.

But will it be pursued?  I very much doubt it.

To succeed in recovering the Blue Wall, the scale of change needed is immense.  Half measures would not work.  It would mean taking on the Reform-curious elements of the Conservative Party, driving many of them to defect.  It would mean enduring endless criticism from the right-wing newspapers and GB News.

It would mean losing some existing support more quickly than new support would be obtained.

None of this makes it an attractive proposition.  It is, nonetheless, now the Conservative Party’s last best hope.