By the time Sir Keir Starmer spoke of the “sunlight of hope” in the early hours, it was more a matter for the Conservatives of who was left standing under the rubble of a Labour landslide than salvaging dignity. Rishi Sunak’s dejected expression said it all — holding his North Yorkshire seat, but leaving office as leader of a party in shock and anger at its dramatic electoral demise and a repudiation of his leadership and performance.
The numbers are punishing — a party with a majority over 80 in 2019 is now about 292 behind Labour. True, it is not the “extinction-level event” of Tory MPs’ worst fears. But the Tories’ results, falling short of exit poll predictions, also mean that even modest hopes of breaching the 130 mark were ultimately dashed.
The London map — a vast tranche of Labour red with a dash of Lib Dem yellow — is more like the national picture than usual. A sign that not only metropolitan voters have turned their back on the Tories.
Much will change as a result, not least the party’s presence in national life after a long period of dominance. There will be over half as many Lib Dem MPs in Parliament as the remaining rump of Conservatives, who can at least congratulate themselves on surviving the cull, as one joked mordantly to me, “like the remains of the aristocracy after the French revolution”.
So, as the Starmer army revels, the retreating Conservative one has lost many of its most prominent figures, from former leader Liz Truss to Cabinet heavyweights Grant Shapps and Gillian Keegan, as well as household-name iconoclasts like Jacob Rees-Mogg.
There will inevitably be deep divisions over what the recipe for Conservative Party recovery will look like
A three-way squeeze of Labour advance, tactical voting for the Lib Dems leading to a bouncy 71-seat result and pressure from Nigel Farage, has consigned the Tory party to a leadership race which is also an existential question — what does the party now stand for at a time in which the fracturing of centre-Right forces across Europe and the rise of rougher-edged challengers on their Right is straining established models of Conservatism?
The spread of these results leaves that prospect tantalising, because key rivals made it through the electoral Somme: Kemi Badenoch, Dame Priti Patel, Suella Braverman and Robert Jenrick all survived a rout which swept away another persistent hopeful, Penny Mordaunt.
The paradox in these next fraught weeks is that Conservatives know that beyond the usual wear and tear of a long government serving in the testing times of Covid, a cost-of-living crisis outside its direct control and Brexit which it brought about but whose management drained and divided it, the damage was home-made.
As the former justice secretary Sir Robert Buckland, one of the heads that rolled, put it in what will be the first of a long list of recriminations, “personal agendas and jockeying for power” were also to blame.
But the upcoming fight for the leadership will inevitably see deep divisions over what the recipe for recovery will look like. The most tantalising question on that score is how Badenoch, right, positions herself against the further-Right challengers. An open question looms over what remains of the One Nation Left-wing Tory establishment — a group which right now looks more like the “one of two remaining” liberal Conservatives. Sources close to James Cleverly, the former home secretary (who put in an affable performance in the great concession round of “je regrette beaucoup” speeches this morning) is unlikely to run. Jeremy Hunt is a dogged survivor in his Surrey seat who may get a renewed vigour from fighting off a Lib-Dem challenge in the commuter belt.
Beyond the Left-Right split long apparent in Tory ranks, the Reform result will divide those seeking to redefine its style and content. Some will seek alignment with Farage in the hope of creating a Right-wing alliance which can bring the fight to Labour across a wider spread of voters. Reform’s vote share of about 15 per cent and breadth of its support mean that it is likely to stick around as a disruptive political force.
Badenoch has used this campaign to make clear that a Reform tie-up would be the equivalent of inviting an especially peckish tiger to a tea party. Meanwhile Braverman can be expected to run as the “bridge candidate” favouring an alliance with Reform, perhaps eventually joining forces with the Faragistes.
Ultimately, though, Conservatives need to find their own way out of this mess. Sunak chanced an early election in the knowledge that he was losing control of his own ranks and, despite a creditable record for stabilising the economy, lost his own gamble and shattered the Conservative record as the party of power. Picking up the pieces will be a long, arduous and fractious process.
