Chico Khan-Gandapur: Why policy isn’t enough – a behavioural blueprint for Conservative renewal

Chico Khan-Gandapur is a managing partner at Metrica Consulting.

In the 2019 U.K. general election “Big Dog” Boris Johnson won by a landslide: 365 seats, an 80 seat majority, with 43.6 per cent of the votes cast.

Fast forward to today, and despite Kemi Badenoch’s regular excoriation of Keir Starmer at weekly PMQ’s, a great Conference, and a policy suite that is Conservative through and through, the Party’s vote share is anchored at just 16 -18 per cent (Politico’s Poll of Polls).  13.96 million voted Conservative in 2019, yet current polling would suggest just 5.4 million voters would now, nothing short of a collapse.

I addressed this in an earlier article for ConservativeHome, The Conservative Party Brand Must Shift With Behavioural Science, back in December:

 “…The wholesale abandonment and ongoing voter indifference to the Conservative brand is not simply a, ‘we are fed up’ moment, or a ‘protest’ vote; rather, it reflects deeper, more structural issues.  Traditional attempts to understand this challenge and turn it around have floundered.  The breakthrough lies in analysing this situation through the lens of behavioural science…”

This second essay expands on these themes, and encouragingly finds the Party employing several of the strategies needed to improve its standings, but it still needs to go much further and deeper.

The subject Behavioural Political Science distinguishes between Policy‑Based support, agreement with specific positions, and Affective Partisanship, the sense of emotional loyalty or identification with a specific Party.  Extensive research shows these two dimensions of support, while related, are actually distinct psychologically.  Individuals may like a party’s ideas but without feeling it represents their group identity, and similarly, may stick with a party they feel close to despite disagreeing with several of its policies.

Neuroscientific studies of political engagement reinforce this distinction, demonstrating that perceptions of leaders and party brands activate emotional and social‑cognitive circuits, not just rational policy evaluation.  This evidence supports the view that voters respond to cues about Trust, Competence and Identity at least as much as they do to detailed policy platforms.  Indeed, some studies argue Trust, Respect and Like together drive 75 per cent of voter intentions, leaving just 25 per cent for policy evaluation – a huge relative difference.

Analysis of the 2024 election suggests Conservatives lost its 2019 voters over perceptions of incompetence, and a loss of trust in the Party as a consequence.  But where these voters subsequently went to was shaped by their values.  Many of those defecting to Labour cited a desire for stability, integrity and competent management of public services (which has obviously backfired) while those moving to Reform placed greater weight on immigration, cultural issues and a sense of voice for People Like Us.  The latter is classic affective politics: voters searching for a party that feels like it’s on their side.

For the Conservatives to turn these challenges around, Behavioural Analysis suggests three interlocking approaches.

First, they must re‑establish visible competence and reliability.  Voters frequently use heuristics (mental short-cuts)  and simple stories to cope with political complexity, such as, ‘they’re useless, they never do what they say’.  Once these negative labels are attached to a party, they are hard to shake-off and negatively impact subsequent information with voters discounting new promises.

The party therefore needs a period of disciplined, almost boring delivery on a small number of salient promises, chosen to be easily observable and personally relevant.  The aim is to replace the prevailing dominant heuristic with a different one: this party now does what it says, consistently and competently.  This requires internal restraint – fewer headline‑grabbing but undelivered pledges, and quieter follow‑through, highlighting a distinction and contrast between those in office.  The Stronger Economy, Stronger Country promises to align with this approach

Second, the Conservatives must rebuild Identity and Belonging.  Behavioural research shows people are strongly motivated by social identity and group attachment.  When voters feel that a party comprises people like me, they are more willing to engage, forgive missteps and tolerate policy disagreements.  When they feel looked down on, ignored or taken for granted, they become open to alternatives which recognise their status and concerns.

For Conservatives this means addressing messages and local engagement that underpin we are for people like you to distinct groups of electorates: older homeowners anxious about crime and disorder; younger families worrying about housing and childcare; small‑business owners struggling with regulation and costs; aspirational working‑class voters who care about order, fairness and tangible opportunities.  Recent messaging from Harrogate, the Party of Common Sense and the Common Ground, acknowledges this requirement.

But it also implies investing in local presence – councillors, associations, community campaigns – as attachment is often and more effectively forged through repeated, face‑to‑face interactions rather than national broadcasts alone.  This is an area which Conservatives need to expand significantly in their attempts to reconnect with nearly 8.5mln lost voters.

Third, they must restore Stable Narratives and Messengers.  Frequent leadership changes and visible factional conflict have repeatedly broken this vital attachment process by resetting and changing cues about what being a Conservative actually means.  Each change of leader and slogan has required voters to ask whether the party has truly changed, or whether it remains the same fractious organisation, but just behind new branding.  In this respect, several defections from the Conservatives to Reform will likely prove beneficial, and might even work to pollute the reputation of the destination Party.

Behavioural and neuroscientific work emphasises the importance of the perceptions of the leader.  Images serve as powerful proxies for party brands, with voters responding to the characteristics they perceive in a leader – steady or chaotic, sincere or cynical, like them or out of touch – and then generalise that to the party.  Conservatives therefore need leaders and local representatives who embody a coherent story about order, opportunity and stewardship over time, rather than a sequence of conflicting personas and narratives.  This breadth of leadership, especially locally, is wanting currently.

Taken together, these behavioural insights point to the need for a broader strategic shift.  The party should approach politics less as a marketplace for policy products and more as a long‑term relationship in which attachment is built through Reliability, Respect and Recognition.

Intellectual policy work remains necessary, but is not by itself sufficient: it must be accompanied by a deliberate attachment strategy that treats trust, identity and emotional resonance as core design prerequisites rather than as optional extras.  Conservatives must demonstrate visible delivery alongside competence in everyday, tangible ways, re‑anchoring the party in the lived identities of key voter groups.

While progress has been made, there is still much more work to be done, especially at the local level.  Upcoming local authority elections in May will be the acid test of just how far the Party has progressed.