The foot soldiers of the Conservative Party are going on strike

The activist base of the Conservative Party is falling apart.

The warning signs have been there for years. Membership has declined steadily, and ground campaigning teams have become increasingly threadbare. The leadership – both Theresa May’s office and the Party Chairman’s office – don’t seem to have noticed what’s going on, or else are deliberately ignoring it.

They may be considered too radical, too whiney, too stupid, or too old to be trusted, but the Conservative Party activists are crucial campaigning resource – and they have been bristling with irritation for years at the direction of their Party.

But in the last 18 months it has all changed. The disastrous General Election, in which activists were disrespected in so many ways I don’t have the space to list them all, has dramatically accelerated the decline of the Conservative Party. Almost every activist still has a sour taste in their mouth from the way their concerns about the campaign strategy were dismissed, belittled, and then proved right. There was no reconciliation process, no apology for getting it wrong, and no lessons learned.

It is against this backdrop that the Prime Minister published the Chequers plan. We are all familiar with the political fallout of the PM’s massive change of position from her Lancaster House speech to the Chequers plan, but the impact on the Conservative grassroots has not attracted so much attention. The anger was palpable. Activists who had quietly got on with delivering leaflets every weekend for literally decades downed their tools. The rage spread well beyond the usual malcontents, and took in even the most mild-mannered of Conservative stalwarts.

There was a sense that perhaps May had got the message at Conservative Party Conference – where a majority of members wore their ‘Chuck Chequers’ badges with pride – as May’s speech made no mention of Chequers.

But the Withdrawal Agreement showed that, yet again, May had not listened. She had not listened to her Cabinet. She had not listened to her MPs. And she had not listened to her members. She was plugging along with the same “I know best” attitude that lost the Conservatives their majority last year. And it tipped activists over the edge.

This week, the hopes of members were raised when a confidence vote was triggered. A snap survey by Conservative Home found that 63% of members wanted Conservative MPs to vote May out. The reaction to the result of the confidence vote among Conservative members has been extreme. The most striking feature has been that it is the most active, committed, valuable members that are the angriest. It seems that there is an almost direct correlation between the number of miles a person has put in on the campaign trail and how despondent that person feels now.

People who have stood as parliamentary candidates, who have run campaigns that won parliamentary seats, and who have dedicated all their spare hours to leafleting and knocking on doors are seriously considering whether they can continue to be a member of the Party they once loved.

The thing that keeps them in the Party – and has prompted many supporters to ensure their memberships and renewals are in order – is the hope that they will need their membership soon, for a leadership election.

The despondency among members poses a real threat to the Conservative Party’s ability to fight elections. The Party is already at a huge numbers disadvantage when it comes to ground campaigning, and if an election comes any time soon – which it easily could – it will be so much worse. The people who organise leaflet deliveries and canvassing are saying ‘no’. The people who go out and get the work done no matter how cold or wet it is are staying at home. People who have given years – and decades – of service to the party are refusing to do anything that could bolster May’s position.

And MPs need to be clear. This is not restricted to the Brexiteers who feel deeply betrayed by the PM’s deal. It’s not just the ‘headbangers’ or ‘extremists’, as some MPs have labelled them. The sheer rage against May’s handling of government cuts across the whole of the Conservative Party: young and old, north and south, leave and remain, and one nation and libertarian. They are shaking their heads, putting their leaflets down, and going on strike.