This is why the Tories collapsed

It is the accumulation of 14 years of postponement of difficult decisions.

July 5, 2024 02:18(Update 5:01)

It's a sign of how conservative activists have been manipulated by this campaign, but as I write this, around 1am, the conservatives I speak to are oddly cheerful.

The exit polls give us over 130 seats, compared to over 140 according to one interpretation. We are, thank goodness, on course to become the official opposition. The Scottish Conservatives should have done a remarkable job in leading the battle against the Scottish National Party, taking half a dozen seats from a party that wants to divide our country.

While these and other results may still offer some crumbs of comfort to the Conservatives, it is important not to lose sight of the bigger picture: whatever the final outcome, it will be the worst in the long and (usually) distinguished history of the Conservative and Unionist Parties.

The 1997 election was a historic rout, after which we spent the better part of a decade wondering whether the party would ever return to power, and in that election we still elected about 40% more MPs than appear to be the case this year.

When the dust settles, there will be a Conservative leadership race. At the heart of that race will be one question: How the hell did we get here?

Each faction will have its own version of events, which serves its own interests and will not help it: it was Boris or get rid of Boris; it was do Brexit or not do it properly; it was install Liz Truss or remove Liz Truss. Everyone’s first instinct is the commentator’s fallacy: the problem was not doing what the commentator wanted, and the solution is to do it.

But each faction has its share of responsibility for this disaster. Tonight’s outcome was not determined in 2022, or even in 2016, although events since then have not helped. It is the accumulation of 14 years of postponing difficult decisions and failing to address the fundamentally broken political economy of this country.

Real wages, GDP per capita growth, and productivity have been stagnant since the financial crisis, if not before. House prices began to soar in the 1990s; rents have risen faster than inflation every year since the 1980s.

We have for decades postponed or abandoned investment in essential infrastructure, from power stations to railways to reservoirs, resulting in avoidable drought and some of the highest energy prices in Europe, with clear consequences both for the cost of living crisis and for sectors such as manufacturing.

The huge reshuffle we have seen at the top of the Conservative Party in recent years, in terms of personnel and rhetoric, makes more sense if we see it as a form of displacement. With the exception of Brexit, which David Cameron had to risk and Theresa May had to attempt, the party has remained remarkably faithful to the status quo on important issues such as immigration and urban planning.

Truss’s kamikaze mini-budget failed precisely because it aimed to cut taxes drastically without considering the consequences for spending. It was, in effect, an attempt to revive economic growth without confronting vested interests (notably on his own backbenches) who were fiercely opposed to useful, pro-growth policies such as building houses and railways.

The big question for the Conservative Party is how quickly it can deal with this situation. As Paul Goodman, former editor of ConservativeHouse, As was recently said, the most important division in the party at the moment is not between left and right, or between Leave and Remain, but between the serious and the foolish.

That is, between those who think seriously about the current state of 21st-century Britain, and what a Conservative diagnosis and prescription should look like, and those on either side of the Brexit wars who are trying to shift the blame to the other side.

There are also those who think that the problem was getting rid of Boris Johnson. It is true that the polls were much better for the party when he was removed than they are now. But polls are dynamic: it should be judged on its trajectory, not its final score. Does anyone think that the Covid inquiry would have been anything other than an utter brutality for the government if it had remained in 10 Downing Street?

It is unlikely that the next leader, whoever he may be, will be able (or perhaps willing) to undertake the whole painful process of rebuilding the Conservatives into a viable party of government. But if history is any indication, they will choose people who will: David Cameron and George Osborne were first returned to parliament in 2001, Michael Gove in 2005.

So even in a parliament where they are likely to be little more than a sideshow and divisions on the Labour benches are far more important to the day-to-day running of government, the Tories will be worth keeping an eye on.

The choices they make in the coming years could prove to be very important.

Henry Hill is the associate editor of HomeConservativean independent conservative blog