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The thanksgiving service for the Tory grandee Michael Ancram last week resembled the funeral of his party. Amid an array of traditional Conservatives such as John Major and a multitude of that old ilk, one observer tells me there was no sign of the current shadow cabinet: they belong to a different party altogether. After their lowest vote ever last week, is it all over?
A sign of life stirs among the embers. All is not quite lost, if the silenced cohort of moderates listen to the likes of a new party member. David Gauke has rejoined the Conservative party, where he was justice secretary before being ejected for rebelling against Boris Johnson’s threatened “no deal” Brexit. He wasn’t sure the party would take him back, he was ready to write about his second rejection, but the computer said yes. He’s back to fight and fight again to save his party from its rightward march into Faragism.
A phalanx of those expelled and those who walked, along with some quiet Tory MPs in parliament, see the glimmer of a chance of creating a renewed party with values they call core conservatism. Dominic Grieve, the former attorney general and also expelled by Johnson in 2019, is another appalled at the galloping campaign by Robert Jenrick to lead the party into the heart of the far right: Jenrick was caught by Sky revealing his “unite the right” plan to merge one way or another with Nigel Farage.
“This is not my party,” says Grieve, who has not reapplied for membership. “The party used to note populist sentiment as a problem but never inflamed it or echoed its vitriol. Jenrick runs a campaign that is racist: there’s no other way to describe it, demonising immigrants as rapists and knife-killers who free-load on us. It’s utterly reprehensible, stoking emotions that cause riots, exactly as Farage does.”
He points with disgust to Jenrick’s stream of immigrant hatred posted on X: “Foreign criminals dodge deportation. Illegal migrants get to stay.” Here’s pure Trumpism: “Equality, Diversity and Inclusion has become a Trojan horse for anti-white discrimination. It’s created identity-based recruitment, where opportunities are offered on the colour of someone’s skin, not the content of their character. This state-sanctioned racism must end.” This former justice secretary issues Trumpian threats to the judiciary: “The simplest solution is to remove judges with a record of activism.” All that, says Grieve, “is the hallmark of the new Conservative party”.
Other moderate Tories, sources say, will not speak publicly now, but about 20 MPs could join resistance to a Jenrick demarche: no names for fear of deselection. Justine Greening on these pages spelled out the party’s “dead parrot” state, scoring a lowest-ever 15% in local elections, a majority only among the over-70s. But she didn’t quite have a recipe or a route to restoration. What would it take? A breathtaking turn.
Public contrition is essential “to distance us from Johnson and Liz Truss, acknowledging her effect on the economy”, says Gauke. But here’s the big one: repenting of Brexit, confessing it was a serious error; not necessarily advocating an instant rejoin, but rapidly repairing EU relations. That could summon back 4 million Tory remainers who, they say, fled post-referendum. Who could do that? Their best hope is for the affable and essentially moderate James Cleverly to step forward as an erstwhile Brexiter to tell the truth about how badly Brexit turned out, a stunning move to define these new/old Conservatives.
The other essential shift, they say, is electoral reform, the only way to split from Jenrickism, allowing alternative opinions on the right and scuppering Jenrick’s far-right bloc. “First-past-the-post no longer fits five-party voting,” Gauke and other rebels say, quite rightly. Here Labour MPs need to sit up and listen: their party, which backed electoral reform at its conference, needs it urgently to defend the country against the far-right risk.
Labour people might chortle with glee at Tory disintegration. But in the fight against the extreme right, Tory moderates are needed to take on Faragism. Without them, the country has no moderate alternative to the right of Labour, Liberal Democrats, Greens and others, risking calamity if Labour is unpopular in 2029. Labour’s win of 63% of seats on 34% of votes could be mirrored by Farage/Jenrickites. Look at Kent last week, where Reform won 70% of seats on just 37% of the vote, or Exeter where Labour topped the poll but won not a single seat.
Naturally these new/old Conservatives have no appeal to social democrats, after all – these Tories are absolutely conservative. Talking to them for this column, their model is as follows: they are socially liberal, downplaying culture wars, but think woke went far too far. These Heseltinian Tories are strong on defence and strong on building regeneration, such as the former deputy prime minister’s development corporations. Strongly pro-business, one tells me: “No more ignoring productive finance in the south in favour of loss-making steelworkers in Scunthorpe.” They are pro-free market and want “to expose Farage’s sloppy thinking, especially on nationalisation, too far from Thatcherism.” They want public service efficiency, saying Labour is in the pockets of unions, on the side of producers, not consumers and some questioning the long-term viability of the welfare state. They challenge Liberal Democrats’ “unrealistic” policies: “they’re only a protest party”, another says. Divided on slowing net zero, united on “we’d burnish educational excellence and opportunity”. A “pro-enterprise” tax system would repeal non-dom taxes that expel the rich. Lower taxes and spending are at their core, but pragmatically, only when possible. Defence bonds would raise funds.
The sell is a “sensible party” reclaiming the “affluent, educated aspirational middle classes”, while appealing to traditional working-class Tories with respect for heritage, institutions of the state, monarchy and parliament. No soap-box grandstanding but a grown-up political tone. No more awful ya-boo Tory press releases several times a day, many with utterly mendacious attacks on Labour: they would restore some political dignity, backing the government when it’s right, attacking selectively on key matters.
It’s a hard task. Prof Tim Bale, aficionado on the Tories, warns that the Lib Dems are now firmly rooted in southern Tory turf. He points out with brutal realism that voters divided on left/right, liberal/reactionary axes cluster thinly in this one nation quadrant of socially liberal but economically dry: probably 20% of voters. But in these fractured days, 20% would see off the hard right. However, all this is unicorn and rainbow talk, unless Labour uses these next four years for electoral reform. If they refuse, they had better be 100% sure it won’t gift power to an unspeakable Farage/Jenrick alliance.
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Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist
