The key question facing the Tories - and why Jeremy Hunt could be the answer, according to academic
The Tories face a major challenge to prevent the break-up of the party, and may need to turn towards the centre in order to survive as a serious entity, a political academic has warned.
Prof Paul Whitely has tipped former Chancellor Jeremy Hunt to take over from Rishi Sunak after the Tory leader resigned following a disastrous night at the polls for his party.
But he could face a battle to prevent the Tories from breaking up and fragmenting amid the challenge from Reform UK, he believes.
Prof Whiteley, the University of Essex's Professor of Government, warned that the Conservatives now face the prospect of a decade in the political wilderness - pinpointing the emergence of Reform UK as a significant development.
"It’s a crucial intervention and it’s new. We’ve not seen this issue for more than a century," he said.
"Throughout the electoral history of the 20th century the left parties, after the First World War, left and centre-left, Liberals and Labour were in competition with each other. The right party, the Conservatives, did not have competition.
"That’s been true right up until the present election. Now it’s changed, they've been squeezed from the right by Reform and from the left by Labour and the Lib Dems.
"It’s a really disastrous result for them... We might actually see the Conservative party breaking up - that’s a possibility it’s not a certainty - but the divisions we’ve observed in the party of the past year between the right and centre make that a possibility, which no one would’ve ever thought was possible until this election result."
The Conservatives are looking for a new leader after Rishi Sunak revealed he would quit the role.
Despite Essex MPs Kemi Badenoch, James Cleverly and Dame Priti Patel, alongside former Home Secretary Suella Braverman, being installed as favourites to lead the party, Prof Whiteley says he thinks Mr Hunt will end up with the job.
"Looking at the tea leaves, Jeremy Hunt succeeded in protecting his seat - he’s going to be the next leader, that’s my view.
"He is not a radical right supporter, he’s going to try and shift the party into the centre which is where it needs to be if it’s going to win.
"That might mean some of the radical right Conservatives slipping away and joining Reform and that’s what I mean by fragmentation of the Conservative party in Parliament.
"That is speculation at the moment but that could easily happen in a way that we could not have conceived of five or 10 years ago."
Election talking points
The big takeaway
The big takeaway
"The overall picture is extreme volatility in all elections. We can see that as early as 2019 because one of the elections that took place in 2019 was the European elections in May.
"We were obliged to participate because the Brexit deal wasn’t done. The ancestor to Reform UK, won and the Conservatives came fifth so the party system temporarily collapsed.
"What happened though it recovered when Boris Johnson became [Conservative] leader and he won an 80-seat majority a few months later, so the volatility is really quite large.
"While Labour has done very well and the result is comparable to Tony Blair's in 1997, it’s not guaranteed to last in this very toxic and volatile context."
Takeaway 2: The UK IS mirroring Europe
Takeaway 2: The UK IS mirroring Europe
European countries such as France, Germany, and Italy have seen the rise in popularity of parties that sit on the far right of the political spectrum.
And that trend is happening here too, only our electoral system is preventing parties like Reform from taking more seats, says Prof Whiteley.
He said: "Remember Reform got 14% of the vote and but only got four seats, but that’s our electoral system.
"If you look on the continent recently, the National Rally, which was the right-wing party in France, won the first round of elections, Alternative for Germany (AfD) which is part of the party family that Reform is a member of, has been doing really well.
"And, of course, the Brothers of Italy, the radical right party are in office in Italy and [Georgia] Meloni is their leader and she is prime minister.
"So we are doing something rather similar but our electoral system prevents it happening quickly in the same way it will in systems in Europe where they have forms of proportional representation."
Takeaway 3: Labour at a crossroads too
Takeaway 3: Labour at a crossroads too
Prof Whiteley says Labour cannot be too cautious when it comes to public services.
"A weakness of Labour is it’s been very reluctant to promise anything and very reluctant spend money on such as the state public sector and public services, the party has to spend serious money if it is to build up public services and grow the economy which is its main aim.
"One of the big mistakes that the Conservatives made as soon as they won the election in 2010 was to cut their way out of recession, this was a very bad idea and laid the groundwork for the weakness in the public sector that we see.
"A number of local authorities are going broke, that has to be rebuilt and it takes a lot of money, and if Labour is ultra cuatious, such is the violatility it might lose support quite quickly.But get it right and Labour could be long-term beneficiaries of the swing away from the Conservatives.
"People who change their long time allegiance's, they tend to do that again subsequently they lose the 'brand loyalty' they may have had, if you want to put it that way.
"That’s what’s happening in our region. I think it’s been very heavily Conservative-looking, but with the growth in population you’ve had a big influx of people from outside, with different outlooks and different attitudes to parties. But it can go in different directions."
He says a lurch to the extreme right might be a mistake.
"After a big defeat, the argument is often made 'If we had been more right, or left wing in the case of Labour we might have won'.
"It’s not true but it’s an argument that is often made.
"The Conservatives are going to face that turmoil and that debate in the next period, but I think it’s likely that Jeremy Hunt will come out on top in which case it’s going to be a centre-right party as far as the ideological spectrum is concerned and that’s where they need to be."
He also suggests that the low voter turnout at this election, around 60%, suggests that many people "have given up" on political participation.
"Very low turnout is an indication of people turning off and not voting but the other factor was an expectation that Labour would win, so perhaps people just stayed at home.
"Apathy and disillusionment is definitely affecting turnout and will affect other forms of political participation as well."
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