Not since the heights of the Brexit debates have people in British politics talked so often about Canada. Back then, it was in reference to a ‘Canada-style’ deal with the EU, based on a simple zero-tariffs agreement and little else. This is largely what the Boris Johnson government eventually forced through and in some sense reflects the zenith of political power for that part of Britain’s right.
Today, that sentiment has reversed as a series of failures has been matched by a conveyer belt of different party leaders.
Now, references to Canada are used as portents of doom for the party that has governed the UK for most of the last century. The fear/hope (delete as appropriate) is that Britain’s Tories will suffer the same fate at the next election as their Canadian counterparts did in 1993. During that fateful national election, the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada lost all its seats apart from two. In the course of a single term, they went from a governing majority to a minority fringe.
While not the most likely outcome, it has become much easier to imagine the Conservatives going through a similar collapse. Just look at the facts. They’re often around 20 points down in the polls. There’s plenty of potential for aggressive anti-Tory tactical voting. The challenger on their right flank, Reform UK, even shares the same name as the right-wing party that undercut Canada’s Conservatives.
But what does this actually mean? If the Conservatives are effectively wiped out, what comes next?
Three broad scenarios are possible.
The first would involve the Conservatives going through a tumultuous period of reflection and internal assessments. Although the bitterness of defeat may in the short term push them even further right, over time the demands of the UK electoral system would force them to move back towards the centre and moderate their stance. The pro-business and more pragmatic wing of the party would wrest back control after years of being under the thumb of the populists. The Conservatives would then re-emerge, like a bright blue butterfly, as a much more docile centre-right party, no longer trying to chase after votes on its right flank. Having ditched the empty slogans of the Brexit years, the search for quick boosts to economic growth (that could then fund popular tax cuts), could even lead to them advocating for UK membership of the Single Market - potentially outflanking Labour among the liberals of England. For the remnants of the centre-right in British politics and media, and for the much larger corresponding group of voters, this would be the ideal outcome.
In the second scenario, the rump of the post-election Conservatives is entirely dominated by its hard right, populist faction. More moderate politicians have quit or gone over to the Liberal Democrats, while upcoming centre-right figures have no desire to be part of this version of the Conservatives. The party occupies much of the same political space as far-right Reform and, depending on the progress of the Conservatives’ recovery, the two may eventually merge. This could happen formally by joining the two parties or informally via key leading figures in Reform joining the Conservative party. Such an outcome would be similar to the way events unfolded in Canada. Here the UK’s voting system ends up working against moderation as voters are forced to accept a populist right or continued governance from the left. While for some this choice will be obvious, the reality is that there is that electorates often tire of being governed by the same party for any great length of time. If Labour fail to continuously and ruthlessly reinvent themselves (historically not a trait they have been known for), then the Conservatives, even as a populist hard right party, will return to power as a matter of near inevitability. In this form, the Conservatives may be further to the right than they are today.
If the previous two scenarios involve some kind of revival, then the third is the true death. Whether they shift to the right or to the centre, the Conservative brand is simply too damaged and the party crumbles into the dust of history. With the way now left open for a new party to occupy the right of British politics, uncertainty will rule. What comes next will be determined by who wins the battle for the last English Tories - the Liberal Democrats or Reform. Each would come with their own philosophies and traditions and in some ways would represent more radical versions of the first two potential outcomes. Here we can see similarities to current politics in France, where Macron’s liberals contend with Le Pen’s nationalists, while the traditional centre-right party remains a shadow of its former self. This scenario would also involve unique challenges in the UK context. For instance, it may be that neither party can secure an obvious advantage over the other for the first couple of ‘post-Tory’ election cycles. In such a world, a Labour Party that would normally have been forced back into opposition may find its lifetime in government unnaturally extended, leading to its own potential for the creation or destruction of political consensus.
None of this may come to pass if the next general election gives the Conservatives a softer landing than many expect. As stated at the start, a wipeout is by no means guaranteed. Nonetheless, these scenarios do underline the wide range of outcomes that could follow from the Tory vote crumbling in a truly unprecedented way.
In that regard, this theorising is not merely idle speculation. Rather, it contains a word of caution for Britain’s progressives. For many in the country, a catastrophic defeat for the Conservative Party would provide no small amount of joy. But while it may set the stage for the return of a normal, anti-populist, pro-European centre-right, everyone should remember: it can always get worse.