The Path Back to Power - Occupying (and shaping) the Common Ground

Co-founder of Whole Nation Conservatives Miranda Jupp is a longstanding North East Conservative activist and former council candidate. Prior to the 2024 General Election she was Chief of Staff to Sir Simon Clarke.

There has been some excellent research published on how and why Conservative support collapsed in the 2024 General Election (superb work by Onward and More in Common have previously featured my our Whole Nation look at the leadership final two (1)) and this week sees the publication of a detailed look at what a route to recovery might look like in James Frayne’s Common Ground Conservatism (2) report for the Centre for Policy Studies.

I would highly recommend reading the full report, which contains a lot of detailed analysis of the reasons people cited for not voting Conservative in 2024, as well as the clear policy dividing lines between 2019 Conservative Voters and 2019 Labour Voters and the much smaller differences between 2024 Conservative voters and and 2024 switchers. In line with Onward’s findings, Frayne identifies that there does not seem to be “a major values or policy divergence between those lost to Labour and the Liberal Democrats and those lost to Reform” (3). The research undertaken in Don Valley, Guildford and Swindon also found that 82% of 2019 Conservative voters stated they were open to voting Conservative again in future, even if they were not in 2024 (4). 

As such the right policy offer could plausibly reunite enough of the successful 2019 coalition to return the Conservatives to Government: in some areas the policy platform required is clear, with broad based support and simply requires the leadership to offer a consistent, credible line on how a future Conservative administration would be more effective on issues where we lost our way in Government, or made a start but still could do more. The areas of alignment between the priorities of a plausible Common Ground Coalition and a viable Conservative programme of Government identified by Frayne include border control, crime and justice, welfare reform and supporting families. These are issues which have Whole Nation appeal and featured in many doorstep conversations I have had in the Tees Valley over the past decade: people want to feel that they live in a safe community, where crime is punished, hard work is rewarded and their children have good opportunities.

However, there are also areas where those of us on the centre right clearly have more work to do in explaining: the NHS, the role and size of the state, level of taxation, the importance of balancing the budget and attitudes to business. The scale of demographic challenges our country faces mean that we cannot ignore these more contentious topics - we desperately need to improve growth and public sector productivity to have any hope of sustaining the standards of public services expected within the limits of realistic tax take. It is therefore vital that we make the arguments for supply side reform, the importance of businesses and wealth creation and the limitations of the state’s ability to give ever more money to the NHS. This requires both some serious policy work and efforts to communicate in a manner which is mindful of these areas where the public don’t necessarily see things the same way we do. 

As a party we must make full use of the excellent public opinion research that Frayne and others have undertaken in the wake of the historic 2024 defeat. We should capitalise on the areas where there is broad public support with our natural policy position, but we must use the time in opposition wisely to undertake the work needed to make the case for the aspects of our approach which don’t have such whole hearted support at present. The incoherent messaging generated by recent attempts to avoid such arguments didn’t save us from disaster and is entirely unsustainable, so we need to have these arguments, but in a manner which wins people round rather than pushes them away.

References

(1) https://www.wholenationconservatives.co.uk/post/the-conservative-party-leadership-race-is-a-jenrick-vs-badenoch-final-abandoning-the-2019-coalition

(2) https://cps.org.uk/research/common-ground-conservatism/

(3) Common Ground Conservatism, p.32

(4) Common Ground Conservatism p.5