A report into the Conservative Party’s historic election defeat in July has warned those vying to succeed Rishi Sunak as leader not to pursue a “pact” with Reform UK or Nigel Farage.
The report, produced by centre-right think tank Onward, professes to highlight a “route back” for the Conservative Party after it was reduced to 121 MPs at the recent election.
It argues a future Tory leader must repair the party’s damaged reputation on trust, competence and immigration — and warns there are no “easy answers” that will lead to an electoral revival in the short term.
Onward says its Breaking Blue report is the largest UK post-election study of its kind, with the findings drawn from comprehensive quantitative and qualitative research with over 24,000 participants.
According to the report, the Conservatives suffered a defeat across all major demographic divides at the last election — including age, ethnicity, social class, and Brexit preference.
“[The Conservative] coalition fragmented in all different directions”, the report says, “to Labour, the Liberal Democrats, Reform and to those not voting”. Ultimately, the party lost 23 per cent of its vote to Reform UK and 7 per cent to the Liberal Democrats.
Meanwhile, the “cross-over” point where voters are more likely to vote Conservative rose to a historic 64.
The report urges a future Conservative leader to address the issues associated with party’s narrow support base, specifically the “demographic and generational ‘pipeline’ problem by seeking to win back voters in their 40s and 50s as well as reaching out to younger voters.”
However, the report adds: “The party’s voting base is the oldest it has ever been, and it must focus on winning back these older, more natural voters first. The party simply won’t have any chance of winning again until it can convince 50-64 year olds to vote Conservative again.”
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The report reflects on the political impact of landmark events such as “Partygate” and the mini-budget, which consecutively led to the downfall of ex-prime ministers Boris Johnson and Liz Truss. The report argues that, following these events, “the party’s reputation for competence and honesty was damaged beyond repair” and that the 2024 election was in effect “unwinnable”.
“Recovery for Rishi Sunak essentially impossible”, the report attests.
The election campaign, however, also saw the promulgation of additional negative new stories, such as Sunak’s infamous exit from D-Day commemorations, which further dampened the Conservative Party’s prospects.
The report introduces the “seven segments” of the British electorate, based on economic and cultural beliefs of voters, showing how Boris Johnson’s 2019 coalition was built and, ultimately, collapsed. They are, in full: Thatcherites, Christian Democrats, Right-Liberals, Social Democrats, the Traditional Left, the New Left and the Mainstream.
The report suggests that winning electoral coalitions are built when one of the major two parties wins its own base, together with a plurality of Mainstream voters and some inroads into the other side’s base.
Onward’s analysis found that the coalition constricted by Boris Johnson in 2019 was “ideologically broad” and contained “inherent tensions” that the Tories proved unable to manage in government.
The report reads: “Managing to hold together this electoral coalition was a difficult proposition given that the glue of anti-Corbyn and pro-getting Brexit done was gone by 2024, but could have been possible with the right policies, successful implementation and a stronger economy.”
It adds: “What happened in July 2024 was a simultaneous collapse of different voter blocs.
“Therefore to build a coalition to win a majority in the future, the party must focus on rebuilding the electoral coalition of segments that helped Thatcher, Major, Cameron and Johnson to victory. This is to combine strong support amongst segments that have historically leaned right on either their economic or cultural beliefs with plurality support amongst Mainstream swing voters.”
The report goes on to lay out new priorities for the leader, with the foremost being the need to rebuild competence and trust.
But the report also says that “uniting the right” via some electoral pact with Nigel Farage’s Reform UK would not be enough to secure a commons majority. Rather, a future Conservative leader is urged to target Liberal Democrat and Reform defectors simultaneously. Simply chasing one group or the other, it is argued, will not be enough to win a majority.
“Aggregating the Conservative and Reform vote in each constituency”, the report lays out, “would produce a total of 302 seats — significantly more than the current Conservative seat share, but still 24 short of an overall majority.”
The report also explains: “Less than a third (31%) of Reform defectors want the parties to unite, but nearly half (42%) of Liberal Democrat defectors and over a third (36%) of Labour defectors want the Tories to distance themselves from Reform.”
Commenting on the publication of the report, unveiled at Conservative conference on Sunday, Director of Onward Sebastian Payne said: “Breaking Blue puts forward a clear path for the next Tory leader to take: repair the Conservatives’ reputation on trust on competence on immigration, public services and reducing taxes for lower and middle income earners.
“There are no easy answers — and any deal with Nigel Farage or Reform would be a catastrophic mistake.”
James Kanagasooriam, Chief Research Officer of Focaldata said: “Breaking Blue articulates in a detailed way what went wrong for the Conservative Party. The findings are sobering for anyone on the centre-right, as the 2024 Conservative defeat looks even worse with further time and analysis.
“The Conservative Party has no divine right to exist, and the surveys and qualitative work suggest that we may be approaching a moment of deep fragmentation in the electorate and deep pessimism, from which it can be hard to curate a vision of Britain that can unite people. There is a pathway, but it is narrow and will require great care and courage from the next Conservative leader.”
Josh Self is Editor of Politics.co.uk, follow him on X/Twitter here.
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