Having suffered their worst ever General Election result just a few months ago, the slogan of this year’s Conservative Conference was “Review and Rebuild”. A generous conclusion would be that this year’s gathering marked the first step in this process. A less charitable conclusion would be that the party has yet to come to terms with the scale of the challenge it now faces to become an election-winning force again.
Unsurprisingly, business attendance was low, leading to a far less corporate feel than usual, which also meant that the mood was strangely upbeat – certainly more so than in the last two years when conferences were overshadowed by a backdrop of infighting and impending electoral defeat. With that out the way, there is a sense that a cloud has been lifted and that members are content to have the opportunity to reshape a Party they felt lost its way in government. Buoyed by Labour’s early missteps, there was a prevailing view that the next election was very much in play.
For a party that achieved little over 20% of the vote in July and is represented by a mere 121 MPs in Parliament, this could be seen as the height of complacency, particularly given there is a far from a unanimous view on what went wrong, and the direction it now needs to take.
A range of reasons were put forward; a stagnant economy, a failure to control immigration, a failure to present a compelling offer to young and working-age voters, too much focus on culture-war issues, infighting, the Truss debacle, a general lack of competence, and natural fatigue of a decade and a half in office.
The challenge for the party is that while there is a degree of validity to all of these diagnoses, it also means there is no easy fix. None of the four candidates seemed able to articulate how they plan to reverse the rise of Reform while also winning back voters lost to the Lib Dems – both of which must be achieved if there is to be any conceivable route back to power. Equally there was no plan set out for appealing to younger voters beyond appearing more ‘fun’ and promoting home ownership. Given the average age of a Conservative voter in July was 64, this is perhaps the most existential issue facing the party and one to which it does not yet have a solution.
While rescue remedies were in short supply, there was an abundance of enthusiasm for opposition. What was clear from all candidates and Shadow Ministers was that the party is determined to be effective in holding the new government to account, despite its deficit in MPs.
Three of the four candidates said that if they were to make the final two, they would appeal to Conservative Campaign HQ to speed up the contest so that a new Leader could respond to the Budget on 30th October.
This was not – nor was it ever going to be – a conference where the Conservatives looked like a party ready to govern again, but there were signs that they were ready to take on the responsibility of opposition. Perhaps that in itself can be seen as the first step on the long road back to power.
