The “red-wall” Tories may think Boris Johnson is their man, but for a long time Boris Johnson was the Conservatives’ political hero in a very different part of the country – London. With London Conservatives, Johnson claimed a famous victory, becoming mayor of the capital in 2008 and resurrecting a political career which was then at a low ebb. Four years later, against all the odds, he managed to see off a second Labour challenge. I was part of both campaigns as the then MP for Putney.
We were the equivalent of Boris Johnson’s red wall Tories today. Back then he was our talisman.
When his second term of office came to an end in 2016, it would have been impossible for activists in London to believe that just six years later, a Boris Johnson-led Conservative party would preside over such huge Tory election losses in London, seeing Labour take power over councils such as Wandsworth and Westminster for the first time in decades.
But that’s exactly what has happened. And it’s worth reflecting on what the lessons are for a Conservative party seeking to win the next election – especially for red-wall Tories who might want to avoid the fate of London’s Conservatives. If it happened in the capital, could it happen to them?
The answer to that question comes from understanding that Johnson’s victory in London came from building a political coalition with an appeal to the very diverse communities that make up our capital city. That is the only way any politician in London can stay elected – I won four elections in Putney by working hard across my very diverse local community, not by dividing it.
In 2019, whatever the innate divisiveness of Brexit politics, Johnson ultimately won by constructing a political coalition that spanned the north and the south and reached into Scotland and Wales. Staggeringly, Labour gained just one seat from the Conservatives in England in 2019 – my own seat of Putney, when I stood down.
Up against a Corbyn- and Momentum-led Labour party with a similar playbook, it was perhaps easy to lose sight of the fact that it wasn’t the culture wars and division politics of Brexit that actually took Boris to Downing Street, but the breadth of the voter coalition he had built, like no other Conservative leader since Margaret Thatcher.
But last week’s local election results suggest that Johnson’s coalition is fracturing. And there are danger signs that the Conservative party risks writing off whole parts of the country – London, the south – and entire groups of people (such as graduates being hammered by student finance changes) as if they don’t matter.
Ministers describing election results in London as “priced-in” wrongly talk about voters’ changing views as if they are simply share-price movements. It is to miss the clear messages that many are sending the Conservative leadership, which is “we matter too”. That all votes count, not just some.
Dramatically swapping one core vote in the south for another in the Midlands and north is one thing. Finding the coalition beyond that core vote to win a general election again is another.
Johnson must get back to his mayoral playbook of political coalition-building to win again. That means offering a levelling-up plan for the whole country, not just part of it. We need equality of opportunity for everyone in Britain, not just some. Johnson must aim higher to win – for a man never short of ambition, surely an easy fit. Few Conservatives could have won the London mayoralty as Johnson did. To win, he and the party must embrace London again, not write it off.
Justine Greening is a former cabinet minister and Conservative MP
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