Before what could well be the last Conservative party conference before the next election, more than one MP reflected on the state of the party by invoking the infamous jewellery mogul famed for mocking his own products and torpedoing his brand.
“It’s been like Gerald Ratner saying his products were crap and then wondering why nobody bought them,” said one MP, assessing the various criticisms being made of the government by its own MPs. “That seems to be what’s going on with our offer to voters. It’s almost like we’ve become a sort of protest movement masquerading as a government.”
While it would be wrong to suggest all Tory MPs are in despair about their party’s fortunes – some see a recent poll recording a 30% vote share as a minor triumph – talking to MPs across the party points to a clear diagnosis: the Conservative party is suffering from an identity crisis many years in the making. This week’s Manchester conference feels more like the uneasy peace talks of warring tribes than a major rallying point before an election.
Tory moderates arrive fretting over a collapse in the youth vote, net zero (in favour) and keeping Britain inside international human rights treaties. The traditional right of the party are worried about inheritance tax, net zero (opposed) and leaving the European Convention on Human Rights. Red wallers want more levelling up. A small but noisy band of Trussites want tax cuts now – while an increasingly influential group on the radical right want a war on woke.
The one thing, perhaps the only thing, uniting the groups is an implied conclusion that their party is in the wrong place and ideologically rudderless.
“[David] Cameron would describe where we’ve come from, what we’re doing and where we want to go – a narrative,” said one downbeat MP who has already decided to step down at the next election. “Now we’re sort of defining ourselves by what we’re against. You don’t really know what it is we stand for. It becomes quite self-defeating.”
The identity crisis risks being exposed in Manchester, suggests former cabinet minister David Gauke. “You’ve got a sort of fundamental problem, which is that the Conservative party doesn’t really know what it thinks,” he says. “What does the Conservative party collectively believe in? Is it a more open, dynamic economy? Is it one where the state takes a big hand in trying to equalise opportunities and economic performance? Is it one that is driven by socially conservative cultural values? The risk is that it’s a bit of everything and it amounts to nothing.”
As if to underline the point that Sunak is at the helm of a party in search of a common goal, some of his predecessors have been offering their own blueprints. While he is understood to be avoiding Manchester, Boris Johnson used his pre-conference newspaper column, sometimes reserved for his thoughts on cheese or his dog, to say that Sunak’s interest in ditching the HS2 rail line beyond Birmingham would be “madness” and like “betraying the north”.
Johnson’s lecture on the need for big state projects will soon be countered by a “Great British growth rally”, headed by his doomed successor Liz Truss. The former prime minister whose premiership lasted only three weeks after her one and only leader’s conference speech last year will demand a smaller state and a slashing of business taxes.
Future challengers will also be stalking the halls of Manchester. Kemi Badenoch, the trade secretary seen as a future leader, has a private drinks event. Liberal Tories are, in their quiet way, fuming about Suella Braverman’s continuing presence in government and leadership manoeuvrings. Some claim to have been given “quiet assurances” that she would be sacked as part of an imminent reshuffle, but she remains in place – even after a controversial speech on illegal immigration in the US last week that No 10 apparently approved. “Sadly, it begins to reflect on the prime minister,” said one liberal Tory MP. “The Conservative party doesn’t win by becoming more rightwing.”
Then there are the Tory MP groupings. Figures on the right, from Johnson ally Jake Berry to the new favourite of the right Miriam Cates, will demand the replacement of “Labour’s European rights and equalities laws”, tax cuts for families, a halving of the number of visas awarded to migrant workers, foreign students and their families - and a ban on “gender ideology in schools”. The Northern Research Group, which had such sway under Johnson, has its own demands for infrastructure projects and half a million more homes for the north.
The conference list of fringe events itself reads like a catalogue of unresolved issues that the Tory party would hand to its therapist. “War on woke – is it popular and is it Conservative?” asks one. Another wonders: “Is it possible to wean ourselves off car dependency while preserving individual choice?” Another reaches for the existential: “What is the future of Conservatism?”
Given this fraught backdrop, it is no wonder that Sunak has attempted to give some fresh direction to his government. With even his own allies conceding that his initial “five priorities” were either off track or seen as too weak to brag about, Sunak used a summer holiday in California to hone a fresh set of announcements to give a sense of momentum going in to the Tories’ 14th consecutive year in power.
Yet MPs said the ideas – most of which have been leaked in a sign of some hostility and unease within the government – also demonstrated how hard it is for Sunak to come up with a policy platform that is coherent and tolerated by the broad swathe of his party. His personal obsessions are among the plans to effectively ban smoking, scale back HS2, replace A-levels and push back climate targets. However, before the biggest speech of his political career this week, the policy flurry has left allies and critics concerned that they reflect the incoherence of the party’s current mood.
“It does feel like a sort of set of personal preoccupations,” said Gauke. “I look at it and think if I were prime minister, we would have an agenda about prioritising red ball cricket over white ball cricket, stopping people spitting chewing gum on pavements and, possibly less popular, stopping people pronouncing H with a “Huh”. That annoys me, but it’s not really a programme for government.” A senior Tory MP has similar reservations. “It’s just sort of random things that must have occurred to people at different junctures, and they don’t speak to a coherent narrative,” they said.
An ally of Sunak said that there was a large part of “let Rishi be Rishi” to the programme. He is said to have resented having to sign off HS2 as chancellor – and deeply dislikes smoking. However, as a wider “pro-motorist” package was unveiled this weekend – including opposition to blanket 20mph limits – Tory MPs detect another strategy at play. In order to kickstart the Tory poll revival, Downing St is seeking to win back natural Tories who have switched to the “don’t know” box in terms of voting intention. Shoring up that base is Sunak’s first task.
“We’ve chosen the sort of wider wedge issues that fire up some of our supporters in that large ‘don’t know’ category,” said a former minister. “They’re the ones who we really need to get back first.” It is clear to see why the strategy has emerged. Special polling for the Observer reveals that a third (34%) of 2019 Conservative voters are currently intending to vote for other parties. In the Midlands, only 61% of 2019 Tory voters plan to back the party again – and the figure sits at 60% in the south of England – spelling trouble in the Tory heartlands.
The issue for Sunak is that, in his attempt to be seen as the leader with fresh ideas, he will be accused of joining the Tory groups effectively criticising the past 13 years of Conservative rule. In another announcement on Sunday – a “long-term plan for towns” – Sunak argues that “politicians have always taken towns for granted and focused on cities”. It has resulted in “half-empty high streets, run-down shopping centres and antisocial behaviour”. It raises obvious questions for the Tory administrations that oversaw such a decline. One northern Tory MP laments: “It amounts to an attack on our record and tarnishes our brand.”
Ironically given its Manchester setting, the issue that hangs over the conference is Sunak’s apparent desire to scrap HS2 beyond Birmingham. The idea is linked to the appeal to the party’s Middle England base. “They wanted to use some of the savings for potholes,” said one weary official. Comparisons are being made to John Major’s doomed “cones hotline”, which has since become political shorthand for a regime that has run out of road.
Treasury and transport department officials are said to have raised serious concerns and may have to raise an official warning – known as a ministerial direction – should ministers proceed.Not extending the line to Euston or beyond Birmingham, they argue, means it no longer represents value for money.
Nonetheless, can this flurry of activity hold the party together enough to mount a serious election challenge? Some Tories are increasingly optimistic, although always placed in the context of previous despair. A main gripe at meetings of the backbench 1922 committee this year has been that the party was barely throwing a punch.
“We don’t want to be victims of events,” said one veteran MP. “We want to be setting the agenda more, dragging your position on to our territory. I think you can say that that’s pretty much what has happened. It could be a momentary blip in the recovery but it could mark an upward trend … This week, I thought for the first time it was just possible he could win a general election.”
A red wall MP adds: “There has almost been this fatalistic view that people had over the summer. We were just treading water and then, all of a sudden, boom, boom, boom – policy after policy. The net zero change in particular was well done. The mood has changed significantly in the past two or three weeks.”
Downing St will hope that with an election looming, Tory discipline will kick in. One former minister and Sunak critic is keen to try to hold the line. “It’s now about fighting to make sure that we’re competitive in the next parliament and that we’re not out for 10 years,” he said. “If there’s even the slightest chance of that to happen, it is going to require us to remember that we have a lot more in common than we do with Keir Starmer and Labour. One doesn’t need to love everything that we’re doing to recognise it’s worth it to avoid wipeout.”
