This week will undoubtedly be remembered as a turning point in the 2024 General Election, and as the week the Conservative Party’s fate was sealed. After initially deciding he wasn’t going to stand as a Reform candidate, Nigel Farage surprised everyone on Monday when he announced he was changing his mind and will now stand as a Reform candidate for Clacton. And if that wasn’t enough, he also announced that he is replacing Richard Tice as leader of Reform UK, the populist party currently polling around 17 percent in the polls.
So, what will this mean for the 2024 General Election? Well firstly, this is very bad news for the Tories. While in 2015 Farage’s Ukip took a roughly equal amount of votes from both the Tories and Labour, in 2024 it looks like Reform will be costing the Conservatives a significant number of seats. This is due to the post-Brexit political realignment that pushed older patriotic Labour and Ukip voters into the Tory voter coalition. Many of the people who voted Conservative in 2019 had previously voted for Labour, Ukip, and the Brexit Party. These older, poorer, culturally conservative voters care far more about national borders and immigration than the more liberal voter coalition that voted David Cameron’s Tories into power in 2010 and 2015.
Rishi Sunak’s failure to acknowledge this realignment is what will cost the Conservatives the election. Instead of reducing immigration and restoring border sovereignty post-Brexit, Sunak chose to continue the Tory mass-immigration open borders policy which has angered Brexit voters to no end. Rather than follow through with the Brexit promise of controlling Britain’s borders, Sunak has obsessed over authoritarian gimmicks and legacy policies such as banning smoking and vapes.
Since being appointed Prime Minister in 2022, Sunak has made it his mission to recover the Conservative Party’s position in the polls. But by focusing on fiddly tax policies and expensive gimmicks, he has totally squandered the party’s 80-seat majority in parliament. Where was the planning reform? Where was the social care plan? Where were the big ideas and radical policies needed to reform our economy?
No doubt the Conservative Party’s lack of serious ideas is one thing turning off voters. Another will be their list of broken promises. Whether it’s Johnson’s promise not to raise taxes, or Sunak’s promise to stop the boats, most voters, even the Tory faithful, have completely lost trust in the Conservatives and their empty promises. Why should we believe them now when they say they want to cut taxes when the tax burden is at its highest in 70 years? Why should we trust them to cut immigration when it is currently at an all-time high?
This arrogance and unwillingness to address the British people’s priorities have led to a surge in support for Reform, which has gone from 1 per cent in the polls in 2020 to 17 per cent this year. With Farage’s return as leader, we can expect this to go higher. With 18 per cent, Reform can win seats in Parliament and kick the Tories far into the political wilderness.
So, can Farage and Reform breathe life back into populism and deal a fresh blow to the political establishment? Right now, that remains to be seen. But if one thing’s for sure it’s that 2019 Conservative voters are easy pickings.
This is an interesting take. As you are saying so many of the problems the conservatives are facing today are of their own making!