There is no hiding it. The British people delivered a whopping rejection of the Conservative Party; worse than 1997, even pipping the 1906 general election result.
As a Parliamentary candidate knocking on doors, speaking to voters and generally living and breathing politics during the campaign, this was difficult to take. It was the most sobering of verdicts.
And let me tell you now: the facts are as stark as the verdict. Between 1900 and 2000, the Conservative party was in office, either alone or in coalition governments which it dominated, for 68 years. That dominance restricted the Liberals and then Labour to only bursts of power.
In 14 of the 26 general elections held over the century, the Conservatives secured sizeable majorities. Throughout the twentieth century, the Conservative party consistently won at least 40 per cent of the popular vote. The 20th Century was undoubtedly, as Anthony Seldon and Stuart Ball dubbed it, the “Conservative century”.
The contrast between 2019 and 2024 is equally stark. We all know the seat tally, but look at the raw numbers. In 2019, the Conservative party secured almost 14 million votes and a 43 per cent vote share. In 2024, the Conservative party secured under seven million votes and 23 per cent of the vote.
“Okay, so what?” You might legitimately ask. We already know the scale of the defeat. But that is the point. Before we can ask ‘why’, we must appreciate the scale of the ‘what’.
The scale of the defeat means that the scale of the challenge is nothing short of seismic – and quite the reality check against any complacency or simplistic analysis.
It is not about engaging in a post hoc debate that seeks to impose a binary choice on us: the party either needs to tack right to court Reform voters, or tack left to court Lib Dem waverers; the ever-changing preferences of the electorate militate against that approach.
But cannot bury our heads in the sand. If we are to regain office, the task ahead of our Party is enormous – and our starting point must be to re-engage in the battle of ideas.
I feel energised by that challenge. The world around us has changed dramatically, even in just the last Parliament. We have lived through a once-in-a-century pandemic, war in continental Europe with a revanchist Russia, and a mounting stand-off against an increasingly authoritarian China.
Looking ahead, the scale of change to come is no less dramatic: rapidly ageing societies, a declining birth rate, and virtually exponential technological change, all amidst the shifting tectonic plates of geopolitics. Change is the new normal.
There are no simplistic solutions. Just as the party forged its thinking anew in the teeth of socialism and economic decline in the 1970s, after belatedly recognising its previous failure to confront the flaws in the post-war settlement, the time is nigh for the party to think afresh about its fundamental beliefs.
Historical parallels, of course, are imperfect; the policy solutions of one era will almost always be different to those of another. Policy by resurrection will not work. However, that does not stop us from learning from history, understanding its patterns and seeing what was successful at any given point in time.
The role of the state and its size, defence and foreign policy, the structure of our economy, how public services are delivered in a digital age – these are just some of the many challenges that we should grapple with at the intellectual level, something we have avoided doing for too long.
I see no new ideas from the Labour Party. Fundamentally, it’s a creature of the 20th Century, its basis for existence having historically been the trade union movement; it is difficult to discern any real ideas that Labour wishes to pursue other than a reversion to the mean: tax and spend.
Sir Keir Starmer has, for now, a mandate to govern. We accept that, and we accept defeat. But the obstacles before us are not insurmountable. With a new leader, we have the opportunity to redefine Conservative policy and ideas whilst holding true to our core principles.
Losing is never easy. Defeat is always hard to take. But with defeat comes opportunity. The party is rightly taking its time over choosing a new leader. That time affords us the space to consider why we lost – and what we could have done differently.
The new leader can spearhead the challenge to the Labour government – but only if they can articulate a coherent and compelling Conservative case to the country. We can win over the trust of the British people again in future, just as we have done so many times in the past. But we have to try.
This article was first published in Conservative Home on 10.09.2024: https://conservativehome.com/2024/09/10/aaron-jacob-we-must-take-the-fi…