The Tory Calamity Part 1
Lessons from Australia
The 2024 UK general election dealt the Conservative party its worst ever result, in an electoral history that dates back to 1835.1 In addition to millions of Conservative voters staying at home, much as they did in 1997, this electoral calamity was also driven by the historically unprecedented performance of the party’s rival on the right, Reform UK. Whilst only winning 5 seats out of the 609 in which it stood, Reform came second in almost 100, and gained over 14% of the vote, much of it from disaffected, typically Brexit-supporting, voters who had supported the Conservatives in 2019. Had Reform not stood, it is highly likely the Tories would have done much better than the paltry 121 seats they ended up with.
Perhaps most significantly election ‘24 has signalled a fundamental change in political circumstance in the UK, and particularly in England, whose long-term impact is still to play out. Historically division on the right had always been intramural, with the Conservative party divided into factions - “wet” and “dry”, in the jargon of the 1980s. Whilst their disagreements were not always just matters of tone and presentation, but of substance, the mechanics of our first-past-the-post (FPTP) voting system meant that each wing of the party understood that gaining and holding on to government required compromise, and a “broad church” approach. The same, of course, continues to be true of the Labour Party since it took over from the Liberals as the principal alternative to the Tories a century ago.
But the right is now divided in a way it never has been before, so much so that at least for the medium term it may be impossible to put it back together again. No longer a division between two wings of a single party, it is now divided into two distinct parties, each with its own interests and electoral ambitions that, particularly if Reform UK win by-elections over the course of the current Parliament, risk becoming embedded. Reform’s party-political horse having bolted the conservative stable, for the foreseeable future it and the Tories will be engaged in a battle of mutually assured electoral destruction where, to the delight of their opponents, each will draw votes away from the other, and turn not just formerly winnable seats, but even safe seats, into unwinnable ones. Having delivered electoral calamity to the right in 2024, both parties are now set to spend as much time squabbling over its carcass as they are attacking opponents with whom they have even less in common.
The political history of a divided right: the case of Australia
Yet, even if this separation becomes permanent, it is no forgone conclusion that the future of the right will be one of electoral oblivion. And, unlikely as it may seem, looking at party politics in Australia at the beginning of the last century may suggest why. Indeed, despite the tyranny of distance and the passage of time, there are numerous, and in many cases quite uncanny, parallels between the right in Australia then and that in the UK now that also give pointers as to how a repeat of the calamity of 2024 may be avoided.
To see how, though, we first need to tell a quite extraordinary Australian political tale. It is one of naked political self-interest and ideological mistrust, of a divisive referendum campaign (sounds familiar?) and of devious legislation. It is also one of voting systems and the gravitational pull they exert on the evolution of political parties, and on the electoral strategies they must put in place to attain government and put their agendas into practice.
Whilst history dictates that the UK and Australia are similar in fundamental respects, conditions on the southern continent also mean that in others they are quite different. Most notably, in Australia rural and regional interests continue to figure heavily in politics, so much so that there is a dedicated political party, the National Party, to serve them. Indeed, in Queensland, the state with the largest proportion of its population living outside its capital city, the Nationals had even formed state governments on their own until relatively recently.
With the Nationals representing the right in rural and regional Australia, urban interests on that side of politics have been represented by the Liberal Party.2 Founded in 1944, “The Liberals” are the most recent of four major centre-right parties to have existed in the country since World War I.3 In Australia, then, and unlike the UK, the right has for over a century been represented not by one but by two distinct parties that, whilst ideological fellow travellers, represent different political constituencies. This notwithstanding, there also exists a longstanding coalition between the Liberals and the Nationals that beyond the formation of governments (on terms that often favour the junior rural and regional partner) has also involved each not standing candidates against the other unless the seat in question is vacant, or held by another party.
But it is not just the divided state of party politics on the right in Australia, mirrored now in the UK, that makes the situation there worthy of closer examination. The very origins of that division, and the way it has been dealt with ever since, offer important lessons for those interested in the future of the right in the UK. (If you are not interested in the future of the right, or delight in the prospect of it not having one, you may wish to look away now.)
Just as in the UK today, the origins of the divided right in Australia lie in a party-political split over a hot-button issue and the referendum that was called to resolve it.