Sam Collins: Internal reform of the party’s structures and processes may be underway but for some it’s underwhelming

Sam Collins is Head of Public Affairs for Popular Conservatism.

Over the past six weeks Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch and her senior team have been making the case – particularly on this website – that they understand the need for major reform of the Conservative Party’s internal structures and processes. While admittedly not an issue likely to come up on the doorstep (I am yet to find a floating voter exercised by the identity of the Candidates Committee Chair or the institutional failures of CCHQ), it is a vital one.

For two decades or more Conservative Party members, especially on the right of the Party, have felt unappreciated (at best) by the professional party hierarchy.

Under William (now Lord) Hague the Party enacted a constitution that has resulted in, like the British state over the same period, gradually ever more power becoming centralised within CCHQ or outsourced to unaccountable ‘experts’.

Even though members were given the right to vote for leader, this gave merely the impression of power – members could only vote for a leader and hope that the person they chose would actually take their desired approach in office: but without the power to either depose them or prevent their decapitation. And let us not forget that members have only been allowed to use even this limited power in barely more than half of the leadership contests since the new constitution was enacted!

After 20 years of at best being considered nothing more than a campaigning resource, and at worst ‘swivel-eyed loons’, member morale is at an all-time low. The shell-shock of last year’s calamitous election result still hangs over many of our supporters, not to mention the feeling of painful loss from the defection of so many of our formerly most committed supporters to the Reform Party. If ever there was a situation where it was vital to prove to members that they are key and valued parts of our mission and organisation, now is that time.

But this isn’t just about Conservative members’ feelings. Ever since 2010 we have seen our Party as a campaigning force hollowed out with every loss of power and authority locally. In 2010 seats such as Westminster North, where there was local discontent over the imposition of candidates, struggled to match the national swing as volunteers stayed home and leaflets went undelivered. While the remaining members have done an incredible job keeping the show on the road, we have felt the decline in numbers and engagement keenly. We need to give putative members more reasons to join and stay involved.

Change, whether further localising candidate selections or democratising the party, is vital if the Party is to rebuild as an effective – and election winning – force. It is clear, at least according to the most recent Popular Conservatism Opinion Panel survey, that if this is what the leadership is trying to achieve then it is not currently working.

First the good news.

An overwhelming majority of our opinion panel (made up of 571 current Conservative supporters, 79 per cent of whom are also Conservative members) agree that internal reform of the party should be a key priority for Kemi and her leadership team. A plurality of panellists still believes that a Conservative-led government after the next election is the most likely outcome. And assuming that Kemi, Julian Ellacott and Clare Hambro stand by the claim they made on this website recently that they understand how important it is for local members to get a proper say in candidate selections, they have the support of 91 per cent of the panel who agreed with the statement that “local associations should have the right to choose their candidate with minimum interference from CCHQ”.

However, it is not all good news for Kemi and the leadership. Appointing Clare in the first place, as Chairman of the Conservative Candidates Committee, goes strongly against the desire for democratisation that is key for many on our panel. 70 per cent (and 85 per cent if one excludes the ‘don’t knows’) of the panel backed roles such as the Chairman, Candidate Committee Chairman and Chairman of the Policy Forum being elected by members, rather than appointed.

And the worst is unfortunately left until last – despite their efforts to date, the leadership has not yet convinced the party members. 47 per cent of our panel believe that the internal reform of the party is going either quite or very poorly, while another 42 per cent don’t know. Only 1 per cent of our panel considered the internal reform to be going very well.

The suspicion of the members could be seen first-hand on our PopConversation earlier with Party Co-Chairman Lord Dominic Johnson, summed up by one attendee as “smooth, emollient, vague”. Time and again questions on the democratisation of the Party were met with the response that focussed on the responsibilities of membership (such as the importance of recruiting new members or sharing social media posts from CCHQ) rather than how rights might be extended.

This is no way a complaint about Lord Johnson himself – by his own admission much of the internal constitutional development is neither his responsibility nor his expertise. But the concern many viewers had was whether this view reflected the wider approach by the Badenoch leadership team: that reform was a matter of the leadership or professional party putting the ‘right’ people in place rather than truly devolving the power to make these decisions to members.

The response to Boris’s defenestration and Rishi’s coronation, not to mention the perceived selection shenanigans by CCHQ at the general election, has made clear that internal party reform is key for party members – as our survey demonstrates. If the leadership want to rejuvenate membership and give our members the morale fillip we desperately need, they need to think bigger.

We need root and branch reform.