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Tories spent too long ‘appeasing Reform voters’, warns May ahead of conference

28 Sep 2024 3 minute read
Theresa May. Picture by Annika Haas (CC BY 2.0)

The Conservative Party has “failed to see the threat from the Liberal Democrats” while focusing too much on Reform, Theresa May has warned.

Writing in The Times ahead of the party’s annual conference in Birmingham, Baroness May said the remaining candidates for the Tory leadership could “play into Reform’s hands” by failing to understand why they lost the general election.

The former prime minister said the Conservatives lost power in July not due to policy, but because the party had “trashed our brand”, losing its reputation for “integrity and competence”.

Partygate

Blaming the Partygate scandal and Liz Truss’s mini-budget, Lady May added the Tories had spent “too long tacking to the right in order to appease potential Reform voters” and “forgot that we are not a right-wing party but a centre-right party”.

Lady May compared the Conservatives’ strategy to last month’s 1,500m Olympic final in Paris, in which Norway’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen was too focused on defeating Britain’s Josh Kerr that he allowed American Cole Hocker to come through on the inside and take gold.

She said: “Just as Ingebrigtsen was focused on Kerr and failed to see that his action against him would open up other threats, so the Conservative Party has been focused on Reform and failed to see the threat from the Liberal Democrats – losing 60 seats to them at the election.”

Her intervention comes ahead of a Conservative conference that will see former ministers Robert Jenrick, Kemi Badenoch, James Cleverly and Tom Tugendhat continue their battle for the party leadership.

The four candidates will each have an opportunity to address the conference, and their campaigns will be lobbying MPs before parliamentarians pick the final two on October 10. Members will choose between those two, with the result declared on November 2.

Pitch

Even before they had arrived in Birmingham on Saturday, most of the leadership contenders began setting out their pitch for the coming days in interviews and op-eds for national newspapers.

Immigration has so far featured heavily in the leadership campaign, with frontrunner Mr Jenrick making it a centrepiece of his campaign and arguing the party’s defeat was because it broke its promises on immigration.

In an interview with the Daily Telegraph on Saturday, he said he wanted to “put Nigel Farage out of business” and described Reform as “a symptom not a cause”.

He said: “It exists in its current state because my party failed. We made promises on issues that millions of people…small ‘c’ conservatives like me, care passionately about, like controlled and reduced immigration, like securing our borders, and we didn’t deliver on those promises.”

Meanwhile, Ms Badenoch used a Times interview to accuse Mr Jenrick’s campaign of engaging in “dirty tricks” by lending votes to Mr Cleverly in an effort to keep her out of the final two.

She said: “If the MPs try and stitch it up, I think the members will be very angry.”

Mr Jenrick’s campaign has denied Ms Badenoch’s allegations.

Mr Cleverly, the former home secretary, focused on tax rather than immigration in an op-ed for the Daily Telegraph, saying Labour’s election attack line that the Conservatives had raised the tax burden to its highest level in decades showed the party “have work to do”.


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Llyn
Llyn
12 days ago

Most of those left in the Conservative Party don’t want to hear these wise words from May. The membership and Tory politicians like Andrew RT Davies would not want to be in a party trying to placate Liberal voters, whose liberalism and open mindedness they despise. Far better in their minds to move evermore to the extreme and decisive right where they feel comfortable and call anyone to their left on the political spectrum names.

John Ellis
John Ellis
12 days ago

The difference is that the Lib Dems, especially in certain areas, appeal to voters who wanted to be rid of the recent Tory governments, whereas Reform UK appeals to voters who reckon that the Tories, even now, are insufficiently ‘tough hard right’.

Two entirely different constituencies.. I’d have thought that Lady May would have been round the political block for long enough to know the difference.

Last edited 12 days ago by John Ellis
Jeff
Jeff
12 days ago

They had a plan? Boris sacked the good cons, you were left with the dreggs, the people that should never have left the back benches, they made Mogg a minster for gawds sake. But you have a party that put Boris in charge to start with. The party held its nose whilst they put thaty SoS in charge! One of the worst PM’s and most dishonest since ever, only surpassed by the Lettuce they let in then a Lettuce runner up. They don’t know what party they were, one thing for certain, swap the name reform with tory party and… Read more »

Swn Y Mor
Swn Y Mor
12 days ago

I honestly do not understand the view that the Conservative Party went too right wing. Yes they engaged in silly culture wars and thumped the chest going on about stopping the boats but lets look at some of their actions. High taxes, big state, attacks on small landlords (ironically cheered on by some on the left) and large scale immigration (which the Tories tried to hoodwink the public). Are these right wing policies?

Jeff
Jeff
12 days ago
Reply to  Swn Y Mor

Leaving echr because foreigners incorrectly stating the court interferers (an extension of brexit ideal), brexit (farages and putins pipe dream), deregulation (cameron, grenfell, truss wanted to gut the judiciary and crashed the UK), ramping up hate in the uk that led to the race riots (farage in the mix but not a Tory), immigration process was ruined hence system broken down, Braverman re admitted as a minister when she had proven her self a security risk and basically painted a target on minorities (she was never fit for that role), Patel also meddling in policing for protests, far right think… Read more »

Fi yn unig
Fi yn unig
12 days ago

The architect of the hostile environment accusing the current crop of vindictives of being too focused on nastiness. Badenoch doesn’t know how a leadership contest works if she thinks lending votes is ‘dirty tricks’ and the membership won’t be half as angry as when they voted for Truss and got Sunak, after which, thousands quit. If Jenrick wants to put Farage out of business, he’ll have to become him. Farage is a pound shop Trump. Jenrick wants to be a pound shop Farage – in the bargain bucket. Still grappling with each other in their cess pit. I wouldn’t insult… Read more »

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