The past twelve months have been disastrous for the Conservative Party. Besieged by scandals, the Johnson ministry premiership was fatally felled by the Pincher scandals of July 2022. The ensuing summer offered the Conservatives a purgatorial slate; some commentators hailed the advent of "unapologetic, liberal Toryism" a la Truss and Kwarteng. The self-described Thatcherite Liz Truss bid to embody her ideology's namesake with an ambitious Growth Plan. Unlike her political role model, however, Liz Truss lacked the strength of will necessary to abstain from the U-turn. Instead of bracing the maelstrom of negative press and public backlash, Truss turned on her Chancellor, reversed The Growth Plan and resigned just forty-nine days into her premiership.
Nevertheless, the Truss premiership did not deal unmitigated damage to the Conservative Party. In representative democracies like the United Kingdom, the parliamentary strength of a political party is twofold: its popularity and the unity of its members. The popularity of a party allows for the election of greater numbers of MPs who might vote for party policy, but the unity of a party ensures that such electoral successes are not overturned by no-confidence votes and rebellions on key policy votes. Although the failure of Liz Truss’ premiership dealt significant damage to the Conservatives’ popularity in ways detailed below, the overwhelmingly negative reaction to the more economically libertarian wing of the party has offered the party the chance to firmly unite around Rishi Sunak and his more moderate policies.
The Liz Truss premiership damaged the Conservative Party by making the Party seem unconcerned with solving the cost-of-living crisis. While her ministry did initiate policies aimed at tackling these issues, the almost-simultaneous publication of long-term measures distracted from the Conservative’s short-term focus. In response to rising energy bills, the Truss ministry announced, on 21 September, the Energy Price Guarantee and the Energy Bill Relief Scheme, which stipulated caps on energy bills for households and businesses respectively.
However, as a committed proponent of supply-side economics, Truss, like many on the right of the Conservative Party, argued that Britain’s economic state was the result of its uncompetitive regulatory policies. This idea is evident in the commentary of Allister Heath, Editor of the Sunday Telegraph. In an apologia for the mini-budget, on 23 September, the day of the announcement, Heath wrote that “Britain’s central pathology is low growth.” As a result of this initial belief, Heath argued that the mini-budget’s policy prescriptions – end of the bankers’ bonus cap, the discarding of plans to increase the corporate tax rate, the permittance of fracking – were necessary to “generate the growth we so desperately need.” Truss and Kwarteng shared in this line of thinking; the mini-budget, introduced by the name “The Growth Plan”, emphasises “making Britain more competitive” to “boost growth sustainably in the long term.”
In announcing a grand economic agenda in the same breath as more immediate plans, any image of the Conservatives as concerned with ordinary firms and households was obfuscated by plans that fashioned them as champions of the capital-owning class. The mini-budget's domination of the news cycle culminated in the publication of figures linking the mini-budget to an average rise of £500 per month in mortgage payments, engendering the feeling that the Conservatives were worsening the already-present cost-of-living crisis. The fact that, according to YouGov, the average 2019 Conservative voter became 14% less likely to vote for the Conservatives in the week between 2 October and 9 October demonstrates that the Conservatives lost significant support amongst their most likely voters.
The Liz Truss premiership also damaged the party in that it highlighted flaws in its electoral processes, reducing confidence that the party might elect suitable leaders in the future. Following the resignation of Boris Johnson, numerous Conservative MPs launched campaigns to replace Johnson as the Leader of the Conservative Party and, by extension, as Prime Minister. Expectedly, given their polling lead, the Labour Party attempted to delegitimise the process by arguing that a General Election should be called to demonstrate that the candidate returned had the mandate necessary to act as Prime Minister. However, non-partisan criticism of the process also argued that, while intra-party leadership processes are legitimate vehicles for the election of a Prime Minister, the Conservative Party should reduce the role of its members in electing party members.
In particular, Hannah White, Director of Institute for Government, criticised membership votes as they “have picked leaders who [do not] have… the support of a majority of their MPs.” Referring to both the Conservatives’ election of Liz Truss and Labour’s election of Jeremy Corbyn, White noted that party membership bases tend to have stronger ideological convictions than their MPs. As a result of this, leadership elections that consult party members, rather than MPs exclusively, return leaders that are more extreme than the MPs whose support they will need to govern. The abstinence of more than thirty Conservative MPs on the Ban on Fracking for Shale Gas Bill in October signalled that Liz Truss, despite being ideologically aligned with the majority of the Conservative Party, did not have the support of the House of Commons and could therefore not govern as Prime Minister. By illuminating faults in the party’s electoral process, the Liz Truss premiership weakened confidence in the Conservative Party’s institutions and highlighted disunity within the Conservative Party.
However, the indicated disunity within the Conservative Party need not be viewed entirely as weakening the party. Liz Truss’ resignation marked the defeat of the free market wing of the party, temporarily pausing the ongoing ideological battles between the Thatcherites and more moderate one-nation conservatives. The victory lap October 2022 election of Rishi Sunak, who spent much of the summer criticising Liz Truss’ plans to reduce taxation, shows that there is now, at least amongst MPs, increased recognition of the fact that the enaction of libertarian economic policy will hurt Conservative chances at the next election. Endorsements of Sunak from Free Enterprise Group members Brandon Lewis and Sajid Javid allude to the willingness of supposed supply-side fundamentalists within the parliamentary Conservative party to cast aside factions if it rectifies the Conservative polling situation. In other terms, there is now greater unity amongst MPs concerning Conservative policy. In this sense, the Truss premiership inadvertently united the party, creating future avenues for the strengthening of the party.
While Liz Truss’ short-lived tenure significantly damaged the Conservative Party’s standing in the polls, her premiership should not be interpreted as a guarantee for a Labour landslide majority at the next General Election. The question of to what extent Liz Truss damaged the Conservative party is intrinsically linked to questions such as, “How well can the Conservatives hope to perform at the next General Election?”: the more serious the damage dealt by Truss, the less the Conservatives might expect from the ballot box in 2024. Polling data suggests that the Conservative Party’s chances are not irredeemable; the Conservatives have already climbed nine percentage points in opinion polls since 21 October – the day after Truss announced her resignation.
Nevertheless, the Truss premiership did not deal unmitigated damage to the Conservative Party. In representative democracies like the United Kingdom, the parliamentary strength of a political party is twofold: its popularity and the unity of its members. The popularity of a party allows for the election of greater numbers of MPs who might vote for party policy, but the unity of a party ensures that such electoral successes are not overturned by no-confidence votes and rebellions on key policy votes. Although the failure of Liz Truss’ premiership dealt significant damage to the Conservatives’ popularity in ways detailed below, the overwhelmingly negative reaction to the more economically libertarian wing of the party has offered the party the chance to firmly unite around Rishi Sunak and his more moderate policies.
The Liz Truss premiership damaged the Conservative Party by making the Party seem unconcerned with solving the cost-of-living crisis. While her ministry did initiate policies aimed at tackling these issues, the almost-simultaneous publication of long-term measures distracted from the Conservative’s short-term focus. In response to rising energy bills, the Truss ministry announced, on 21 September, the Energy Price Guarantee and the Energy Bill Relief Scheme, which stipulated caps on energy bills for households and businesses respectively.
However, as a committed proponent of supply-side economics, Truss, like many on the right of the Conservative Party, argued that Britain’s economic state was the result of its uncompetitive regulatory policies. This idea is evident in the commentary of Allister Heath, Editor of the Sunday Telegraph. In an apologia for the mini-budget, on 23 September, the day of the announcement, Heath wrote that “Britain’s central pathology is low growth.” As a result of this initial belief, Heath argued that the mini-budget’s policy prescriptions – end of the bankers’ bonus cap, the discarding of plans to increase the corporate tax rate, the permittance of fracking – were necessary to “generate the growth we so desperately need.” Truss and Kwarteng shared in this line of thinking; the mini-budget, introduced by the name “The Growth Plan”, emphasises “making Britain more competitive” to “boost growth sustainably in the long term.”
In announcing a grand economic agenda in the same breath as more immediate plans, any image of the Conservatives as concerned with ordinary firms and households was obfuscated by plans that fashioned them as champions of the capital-owning class. The mini-budget's domination of the news cycle culminated in the publication of figures linking the mini-budget to an average rise of £500 per month in mortgage payments, engendering the feeling that the Conservatives were worsening the already-present cost-of-living crisis. The fact that, according to YouGov, the average 2019 Conservative voter became 14% less likely to vote for the Conservatives in the week between 2 October and 9 October demonstrates that the Conservatives lost significant support amongst their most likely voters.
The Liz Truss premiership also damaged the party in that it highlighted flaws in its electoral processes, reducing confidence that the party might elect suitable leaders in the future. Following the resignation of Boris Johnson, numerous Conservative MPs launched campaigns to replace Johnson as the Leader of the Conservative Party and, by extension, as Prime Minister. Expectedly, given their polling lead, the Labour Party attempted to delegitimise the process by arguing that a General Election should be called to demonstrate that the candidate returned had the mandate necessary to act as Prime Minister. However, non-partisan criticism of the process also argued that, while intra-party leadership processes are legitimate vehicles for the election of a Prime Minister, the Conservative Party should reduce the role of its members in electing party members.
In particular, Hannah White, Director of Institute for Government, criticised membership votes as they “have picked leaders who [do not] have… the support of a majority of their MPs.” Referring to both the Conservatives’ election of Liz Truss and Labour’s election of Jeremy Corbyn, White noted that party membership bases tend to have stronger ideological convictions than their MPs. As a result of this, leadership elections that consult party members, rather than MPs exclusively, return leaders that are more extreme than the MPs whose support they will need to govern. The abstinence of more than thirty Conservative MPs on the Ban on Fracking for Shale Gas Bill in October signalled that Liz Truss, despite being ideologically aligned with the majority of the Conservative Party, did not have the support of the House of Commons and could therefore not govern as Prime Minister. By illuminating faults in the party’s electoral process, the Liz Truss premiership weakened confidence in the Conservative Party’s institutions and highlighted disunity within the Conservative Party.
However, the indicated disunity within the Conservative Party need not be viewed entirely as weakening the party. Liz Truss’ resignation marked the defeat of the free market wing of the party, temporarily pausing the ongoing ideological battles between the Thatcherites and more moderate one-nation conservatives. The victory lap October 2022 election of Rishi Sunak, who spent much of the summer criticising Liz Truss’ plans to reduce taxation, shows that there is now, at least amongst MPs, increased recognition of the fact that the enaction of libertarian economic policy will hurt Conservative chances at the next election. Endorsements of Sunak from Free Enterprise Group members Brandon Lewis and Sajid Javid allude to the willingness of supposed supply-side fundamentalists within the parliamentary Conservative party to cast aside factions if it rectifies the Conservative polling situation. In other terms, there is now greater unity amongst MPs concerning Conservative policy. In this sense, the Truss premiership inadvertently united the party, creating future avenues for the strengthening of the party.
While Liz Truss’ short-lived tenure significantly damaged the Conservative Party’s standing in the polls, her premiership should not be interpreted as a guarantee for a Labour landslide majority at the next General Election. The question of to what extent Liz Truss damaged the Conservative party is intrinsically linked to questions such as, “How well can the Conservatives hope to perform at the next General Election?”: the more serious the damage dealt by Truss, the less the Conservatives might expect from the ballot box in 2024. Polling data suggests that the Conservative Party’s chances are not irredeemable; the Conservatives have already climbed nine percentage points in opinion polls since 21 October – the day after Truss announced her resignation.
The next seventeen months of Conservative Party strategy will highlight some of the flaws inherent to democracy: poor governance will be disguised by sophistry and Sunak's force of personality. Instead of indulging in fantasies like mandating all pupils study mathematics to 18, Sunak's gains can be consolidated by personality-focused campaigning. Despite the vast disparity between the Labour and Conservative Parties in the polls (14 points), March data from Ipsos shows that Britons believe that Sunak would be a "more capable Prime Minister" than Starmer. The tussle between the party leaders will vindicate whichever man takes Downing Street next year. Recognising this truth, Labour's early election messaging has turned against Sunak himself, castigating him as anti-worker and soft on crime.
Irrespective of negative Labour campaigning, Sunak remains the man most suited to delivering a favourable election result in 2024. At the dawn of the pandemic, Rishi Sunak attracted broad appeal with his generous furlough plans and incentivisation of public spending. While the Johnson premiership reflected unkindly on his popularity as Chancellor, his climbing poll numbers suggest that he has left the Johnson era behind. Unlike Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak's appeal lies in seeming overwhelmingly sensible. He has never refused to take questions about the number of children he has, combs his hair before he leaves the house and is yet to seek the unlawful prorogation of Parliament. Although lacking the elan of Blair or Thatcher, his skilled oratory and abstinence from the supply-side fundamentalism that doomed his predecessor combine to indicate that he will lead the Conservative Party into the next General Election and beyond.
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