Adam Joiner: After the local elections, what comes next?

Adam Joiner is a member of the Chingford and Woodford Green Association and  Deputy Chairman (Political) for the East London Young Conservatives.

Anyone following this week’s elections knew the Conservatives were in for a tough time.

Coming off the back of an historic defeat, it was never going to be an easy pill to swallow, especially as the last time many of these seats were contested was 2021, when the Conservatives were riding high. With the Conservatives losing 676 council seats (the Lib Dems gaining 163, and Reform gaining 677), and managing to secure a measly 2,341 votes (7.2 per cent of the vote) in the Runcorn and Helsby by-election, the Conservative vote, quite frankly, collapsed.

Now, on the face of it, a hasty conclusion could be drawn that the Tories are finished electorally. However, it was always going to be a long and difficult process to rebuild after the general election. We’ve gone through six leaders in 15 years – if we can’t give the party stable leadership, how can people expect us to give it to the UK?

The question we have to ask ourselves now though, is what comes next?

I have increasingly been told that to survive, the party must either swing right to squeeze out Reform, or hold the line in the centre, and face down the Lib Dems. This false dichotomy misses the point; between the centre and the further right is exactly where we should be as a centre-right party. The answer isn’t to abandon our position, it’s to clarify and unify around it. We need to be clear on our principles – forgetting them cost us last year. Unless we address this, we will never recover.

The Conservative party is a broad church, and should remain that way, but we need a core set of guiding principles that we can all agree on: liberty; free enterprise and low taxes; equality before the law; democracy – these are all values we must hold fast to, or face being ostracised by the electorate.

Furthermore, there are basics we need to get right to build ourselves back up. The first thing we need to do is accept responsibility for the last 15 years. Yes, there are parts of our record we should be proud of – like raising standards of numeracy and literacy for our children. However, we failed to deliver on immigration, we failed to deliver on the NHS, and we failed to deliver on sustained economic growth. It’s no use trying to defend the last 15 years of Tory rule to people who suffered because of our failure – houses foreclosed, appointments unavailable, and energy bills higher. We need to stand up and admit we made serious mistakes; we were punished for them at the polls, and continue to be.

Aside from this, we need to realise other political parties aren’t our friends. Yes, bipartisanship on key issues (like supporting Ukraine) is important, but the other side is not our ally. Labour and the Greens are completely ideologically opposed to us: they don’t value liberty or free enterprise, and they want to put taxes through the roof! Ed Davey wants to see the Conservatives wiped out in local government, and Reform is committed to the total annihilation of the party. At every opportunity, we need to take our opponents on. Talk of a pact with Reform against Labour is just defeatist – they don’t want to work with us, they want to destroy us, and in turn, we must work to put Farage in a retirement home.

Moreover, at the core of every party is the members: the people who get up on a rainy morning to go and knock on doors, or deliver leaflets,  input data, raise funds – the list goes on. We wouldn’t be anywhere without them: many become amazing candidates for their local areas, and many dedicate so much of their time to the party’s success. However, it’s no secret that our membership isn’t what it was, falling from around 3 million in the 1950s to roughly 130,000 members as of November 2024. There are plenty of Conservative sympathisers up and down the country, and we need to engage with as many of them as possible to get them involved – whether that be through becoming full members, or just delivering a box of leaflets up and down their road. By becoming a party of the people, we can begin to rebuild the trust that we’ve lost.

On the topic of membership, the party faces a major challenge: the lack of youth appeal. Even in the last election, when Reform’s capabilities were unclear, they took more of the 18-24 vote than the Conservatives (nine per cent vs eight per cent).

Young people in this country are deeply troubled about the future. Will they be able to afford to buy a house? Have a family? In response, what was the last government’s flagship policy for young people? National service. It appeared a last gasp attempt to keep older voters from switching shades of blue, and it highlighted the – at best – ignorance and – at worst – contempt with which young people are treated by the political system.

Yes there are exceptions, but on the whole, young people feel disengaged with the political system – is it any wonder they turn out in droves to protests in Westminster? The solution? Work with young people, recognise the issues they face, and present a solid plan to address them. These people are at the start of their voting record – make a bad first impression and we could lose them for decades.

So, what comes next? Things are likely to get worse before they get better. Voters are angry with both the Conservatives and Labour, with Reform and the Lib Dems benefitting from our loss.

It may be that we are entering a new era of multi-party politics, and we will need to compete even more for votes and media attention. But it is wrong to call us finished, and we will not be consigned to the books of political history. We can rebuild, if we hold on to our core principles. It won’t be done in weeks or months, but through years of getting the basics right. Only through that will we start to rebuild trust in the Conservative brand. Combine that with a robust and thought-out set of policies,  a drive for membership, a real answer for young people, and a crusade against our opponents, and we will start to see success again.

After 1997 it took 13 years for us to be back in government. We must hold our nerve, back Kemi Badenoch, and be steadfast in our opposition to those parties that – if they had their way – would see the Tories thrown out of Parliament.