How the Tories and Reform revived the Lib Dems

I think you can now see the logic behind why Rishi Sunak called a General Election for July 4th. Analysis would have shown the Reform party utterly ill-equipped to fight a General Election. Candidates were not vetted, funding was not in place, and, most importantly, Nigel Farage was not in control of the party.

The theory must have been to call a snap election and kick off the campaign with a series of policy announcements that would suffocate Reform out of the Right of British politics – at least in the short term. The idea would have been to throw out enough red meat at the start of the campaign to the point where the Tories could strike some sort of non-aggression deal, either with Reform in general or directly with Farage. This would have allowed Sunak to focus on the centre for the rest of the campaign, which is likely where his true values lie.

All of this makes sense. After all, this was the strategy that helped Cameron secure his small, workable majority in 2015: he neutralised UKIP with a promise of the Brexit referendum, unified the centre-Right, and then had the freedom to attack his coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats, in the centre to secure his majority.

It appears that the Conservatives were indeed engaging with Farage at the start of the General Election campaign: unsubstantiated rumours ranged from offers of a peerage and even a place in the Cabinet to the possibility of Farage becoming the Ambassador to the USA. While these negotiations were likely informal, and how far they went will undoubtedly be the subject of articles and books by those on the inside for years to come, it would be surprising if there had been no dialogue between Farage and the Conservatives.

The strategy of appealing to the Right can be seen in the policy announcements at the start of the Election campaign. Examples include proposals to compel 18-year-olds into National Service or forced labour in the NHS, tax policies focused on retirees exempt from income tax on triple-locked state pensions (thus creating the quadruple lock), cuts to welfare (apart from the triple-locked state pension), and a general shift away from green policies and environmental concerns.

These were all early campaign examples of Sunak attempting to solidify the right under the Conservative banner. He aimed to appeal to those who, in recent years, have flirted with the various incarnations of Farage, from UKIP to the Brexit Party and now Reform.

However, the strategy did not work. In fact, it went so wrong that the Conservative Party is now fighting for its life, not just in this election but for its very future as a viable political party.

It began to unravel because many of those right-wing policies were deeply unpopular. A prime example was the National Service proposals, which were met with near-universal dismay and ridicule. It would be hard to imagine NHS bureaucrats and Army generals agreeing on anything — yet the Conservatives somehow managed it. No doctor wants bored 18-year-olds on wards making TikTok videos, any more than the military wants professional solders to be tasked with whipping conscripted teenagers through assault courses.

This all fits into a narrative of a manufactured Conservative culture war against “Woke”, which resonates with the vocal political fringe, but struggles in mainstream debates on the economy, NHS, and education.

However, the real failure of the strategy came as soon as Nigel Farage announced he would lead Reform into the General Election. At that point, all bets were off, and the Conservative strategy collapsed before it truly began.

One might think the main beneficiary would be Reform. Wrong.

The party might secure a handful of seats, which is hardly worth the cost if it catapults Labour into a “supermajority”, enabling the Left to act with impunity. Reform is meant to work as a way to pull the Conservatives further to the Right, allowing it to dictate the agenda. The Reform tail is most effective wagging the dog. If the tail is cut off it can’t wag, let alone control the dog. As it currently stands, Reform’s direct competition for votes against the Conservatives will keep any Right-of-centre agenda out of power for a generation.

Adding to this is the cautious governance of Sir Keir’s Labour Party. With a newly invigorated secondary power-base north of the border, thanks to the SNP’s self-destruction, he can sit back and watch as the Right-wing of British politics tears itself apart. This General Election has seen him quietly tallying up the constituencies he can pick off, not necessarily by expanding his voter base, but because the Right has splintered into electoral oblivion.

But the unexpected winner in all of this appears to be the Liberal Democrats – so unexpected that few have truly grasped the reality of what is happening. Many, myself included, have been so absorbed by the psycho-drama on the right of British politics that we’ve failed to notice what’s occurring in the centre.

Nick Clegg took the Liberal Democrats into coalition government in 2010 with 57 seats. They were decimated in 2015, winning only 8 seats, and have struggled to recover since. However, recent polling suggests they could be on course to win up to 67 seats. Similar polling projections could place the Tories at around 50 seats and Reform at 5.

The Conservative performance in this General Election has been a masterclass in how to blow a strategy, and as a result, the party is facing its most existential crisis since the Corn Laws of 1846. The Right of British politics so self-destructive that Reform and the Conservative Party could end up, collectively, with fewer seats than the Liberal Democratic Party. This is a party until recently thought to be as relevant to Westminster as Wimpy is to the British fast-food.

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