r/tories • u/major_clanger Labour • 3d ago
Best way to see off reform?
Bring in a leader who has more purchases with reform voters? i.e. Boris Johnson?
Try to outflank them on issues driving people to reform i.e. immigration? (might be tricky given their gov track record, might need a new leader)
Try to create dividing lines that put reform on the wrong side of their voters? ie support for Ukraine & the UK military in general? Support for Pensions and NHS?
Try to pull away reforms behind the scenes backers (donors, musk etc)?
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u/28374woolijay Verified Conservative 3d ago
It would help to have actual policies, and then hammer home the reasons why they will be more effective than anything Reform offer.
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u/VincoClavis Traditionalist 3d ago
I don’t think we can. We can just hope that people will revert to habit at the next election but we’ve spent the past 2 decades saying one thing to the public then doing the opposite. How can anyone truly trust us again, even if Labour totally screw the pooch?
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u/ROSS_MITCHELL Verified Conservative 3d ago
Honestly why on earth would you hope for that, if the tories get in power you just get more of the same uniparty nonsense and all promises broken and no lessons would be learned, they need to lose for a good long time so they either change or are replaced by a right wing party that actually does what it says its going to do.
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u/VincoClavis Traditionalist 3d ago
Exactly! The vote x, get Labour option doesn’t frighten me anymore when you vote Conservative, get Labour.
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u/smeldridge Verified Conservative 3d ago
This 100%. Also their MPs and shadow ministers say it in every interview, which is very irritating. Makes me want to vote reform even more!
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u/HisHolyMajesty2 High Tory 3d ago
If the Tories properly come back from this (which isn't impossible), it will take a decade and the last vestiges of Cameron's reforms must fail first. And anyone involved with the last fourteen years of government would not be leading it by then.
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u/smeldridge Verified Conservative 3d ago
Difficult to do, the Tories have blown their credibility on their bread and butter subjects. Financial stability, immigration and crime. The Tories record on these subjects are abysmal. Whenever Kemi or any other shadow minister or MP attempts to talk tough on any of these, their record will be thrown back in their face. And "we have learnt lessons since" does not cut the mustard. This is why I and many others will vote reform.
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u/eamon360 3d ago
Expel from the party every holder of a great office of state from the last 14 years, admit that we made the wrong decisions with immigration and allowing all the nations major institutions to become woke, democratise the party structure.
Essentially disavow the decisions and leaders that got us into this mess. Even then, the party image may still be tainted and we’ll have a lot to do to regain the trust of the public.
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u/Chewy-bat Thatcherite 3d ago
You cant. Its too late John Major sold the party out to neoliberalism and its destroyed the country aided by Blair
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u/easy_c0mpany80 Reform 3d ago
I know JM seems to have very different opinions nowadays compared to when he was PM but how exactly did he sell the party out to neoliberalism? Esp. seeing as they were out of office from May ‘97
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u/Kawecco Curious Neutral, YIMBY 2d ago
He didn’t, you will see that across the political spectrum, ‘Neoliberalism’ just means ‘policies/ideologies/personalities I don’t like’.
Thatcher was our first Neoliberal-in-chief for championing the free market after the failures of the previous Conservative and Labour governments to tackle inflation and a generally miserable economy.
They just don’t want to say Thatcher did it, because they have ‘Thatcherite’ as their flair, likely without really understanding what it means, beyond anti-EU.
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u/LeChevalierMal-Fait Clarksonisum with Didly Squat characteristics 3d ago
i.e. Boris Johnson?
the immigration spike post covid is being called boris wave
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u/caspian_sycamore Verified Conservative 3d ago
The party have to do something radical to make people believe them. Boris Johnson is just a left-lib, someone who is known for opening the Tory Flood to get the Boriswave in the country.
Only way to make people believe what Tories say is do something like purging all the names involved in the 14 years of catastrophe, and maybe we can start to believe what the party say, just maybe...
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u/Jattack33 Traditionalist 3d ago
Try actually being conservative rather than just Blairite.
14 years of Conservative government got us record spending, record immigration numbers, gay marriage and then caused a Labour landslide
So much for conservatism.
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u/JustElk3629 3d ago
Do you think that a sizeable number of Brits actually want to see gay marriage reversed?
That’s not a winning platform, sorry to break it to you.
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u/Jattack33 Traditionalist 3d ago
No of course not, it still doesn’t make it a conservative policy
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u/JustElk3629 2d ago
It wasn’t a conservative policy when it was introduced, but that was more than 10 years ago.
To reverse it now would simply be regressive.
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u/Jattack33 Traditionalist 2d ago
So we should never reverse any policy once it has been in place for an arbitrary period of time?
Michael Oakeshott once wrote
English conservatives wish (or at least they used to wish) to retard, even stop, progress. Evelyn Waugh once remarked that he would never again vote for the Tories: They had been in power for more than eight years and hadn’t turned back the clock one minute.
The party isn’t conservative it’s liberal, just ten years after Labour and the Lib Dem’s have adopted it
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u/JustElk3629 2d ago
Why should it be reversed?
What would be the benefits to society?
Not a trick question, I’m genuinely interested.
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u/Jattack33 Traditionalist 1d ago
I’m not saying the Conservative party should advocate for its reversal for electoral success
However it should be reversed because marriage is between a man and a woman, and so-called gay marriage is an offence to God
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u/JustElk3629 1d ago
It is an offence to God… in your opinion.
The Church should not be stopped from praying for those who are homosexuals or refusing to marry same-sex couples. That is a principle of religious freedom.
But freedom of conscience works both ways —— men and women should have the right to marry their preferred sex while recognising that not everyone believes they are making the right choice and may not want to officiate their ceremony.
Your faith is not objectively superior. The Church of England is inseparably intertwined with our history and culture but is not and should not be the supreme legislative force in the UK.
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u/BobbieWickham29 3d ago
Find ways to interest and involve the younger generation(s) in politics; Reform's policies are designed to appeal to the greying age groups but those can be outnumbered IF the young will just get out and vote.
Farage is a fraud, out for his own benefit. Reform itself is a business, 60% of which is owned by farage. "The Reform Party is a limited company (the Reform UK Party Limited)[192] with fifteen shares. Farage owned 53% of the shares in the company, giving him a controlling majority. The other shareholders were Tice, who holds about a third, and Chief Executive Paul Oakden and Party Treasurer Mehrtash A'Zami who each held less than seven percent.[193] In August 2024 Paul Oakden was removed and Farage took over his shares, giving him 60% ownership" Wikipedia
Farage seldom attended the European Parliament when he was an MEP; he has made very few appearances in the Clacton area since his election as MP for the area. He is working entirely for his own benefit, always has. If the anticipated $100M is donated by Musk, you can bet your ass that a large proportion of it will end up in Farage's bank account(s). Whether he is allowed to bank at Courts or not!
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u/Iron_Defender 2d ago
In addition to the great answers we've had already (like focusing on actual policies) the elephant in the room is immigration.
If the tories actually had a credible policy on immigration to bring it down significantly and reduce illegal crossings then that would take the wind out of Refoems sails.
But the problem there is that absolutely any attempt will be shot down with "you had 14 years to do something", and ignoring it just adds to fuel to the fire of people's anger that it's not being addressed properly.
So I'm not sure the Tories can credibly do anything on that subject.
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u/Sivo1400 2d ago
Deport every last illegal. No more citizienship and free hotels for everyone who turns up. Thatcher would never have tolerated all the nonsense talking the tories have done in the last decade. All talk. Zero action.
The UK is being taken for a mug allowing any man to turn up and check into a hotel while we make them a citizen and get them a council house.
Immigration is now the only issue. Unless the tories elect an effective hard line leader, the days of Conservative Government are over.
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u/yojifer680 2d ago
They need to apologise for the mass immigration betrayal and pledge to reverse it. There's no other way back.
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u/Unfair-Protection-38 2d ago
Kemi needs to make a clear set of policy outlines in key areas.
Economy, set out a free market structure that doesn't leave people behind. She started doing this in the leadership race & it was good.
Don't obsess about woke stuff, simply be sensible.
Have a plan for the NHS, privatisation scares the public but we know there needs to be private supply, Srteeting knows this, his party hates it, support Streeting but outline how to go further.
Immigration. Come up with a fair policy, encourage working visas where appropriate (without benefits) iver asylum. Make it clear the bar is to be high for asylum to be successful. Asylum cases to go on a work prep scheme, i e, they can finish hs2 for free.
Finally, in 2028, decide with Farage which seats he can have, stand down candidates in the red wall.
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u/AyeItsMeToby 3d ago
Don’t support the NHS. No one wants to hear it. It’s too big, bloated, and shit.
Actually propose sweeping NHS reforms in conjunction with a real crack down immigration and asylum, and a plan to reduce taxes from Reeves’ suicide budget.
Be strong on those three and ignore whatever Reform do. You can’t beat Farage on his own terms so don’t bother trying.
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u/Pitisukhaisbest 3d ago
Tbh this is hard, and I don't think a different leader would be doing massively better in polls - the "14 years" riposte would be flung at them.
I think we need clear and detailed policies on the things with Reform wants with explanations as to how we can deliver them.
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u/mcdowellag Verified Conservative 3d ago
Demonstrate competence by correctly predicting the disadvantages of Labour's policies. For example, many commentators are pointing out that the Labour attack on private schools is increasing the burden on state schools, which will now have to take in the pupils from private schools that have been forced out of business. Since Labour have ambitious plans for the NHS, I expect that the NHS will feature in this. So far it seems that Labour, although they wish to increase the role of the state, are appalling bad at managing it.
Again, "You are failing here" is open to both Tory and Reform, but "We predicted that you would fail here because of this, and you have" should be a means of demonstrating the Tory party's greater familiarity with the business of actually running a government.
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u/JJB-125 Kinda none of these 3d ago
Simple basic competence- show that we understand the main issues (and not twitter's main issues) and put forward serious ideas for how to solve them. Avoid infighting. Highlight Labour failure, and prove through actions not words that only the Conservatives as a new, freshened party can fix those failures.
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u/RtHonourableVoxel Verified Reform 3d ago
They’re what the tories should be so joining them is inevitable
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u/SlightlyMithed123 3d ago
The issue is that nobody trusts the Tories anymore, they could go full hardline on immigration and people will just point to the last 14 years of lies about it.
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u/TangoJavaTJ One Nation 3d ago
I think there’s two options:-
double-down on right-wing populism to try and win back Reform voters.
move to the centre in a Cameron-style “modern compassionate Conservatism” to try to win voters off Labour and the Liberal Democrats.
Either might work but the Conservative Party does need to just pick one and do it. Trying to fence-sit doesn’t work in politics.
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u/Jubblington 2d ago
Honestly, I think that the best way to do it is just to wait and make sensible Conservative policies. Reform, and I don't mean to upset anyone who supports or votes Reform but it seems to be a common trend for parties like Reform, will likely strat to frey after a couple of years as different populist factions begin to vie for influence and more radical members start to gain influence. As an example, It may also be that Musk begins to influence the party which may cause a rift with Musk backers and Farage loyalists. Therefore, if the Tories develop rational Conservative policies and are able to not rip themselves apart (big if I know), voters will likely return to the party. The other thing about waiting is that, no one has any idea on what the political landscape will look like in the next election so it is impossible to know if concerns about immigration, Reform's biggest (and in my opinion, only) 'selling point', remains a concern for the electorate. After all, would anyone have predicted that this would be the Political landscape after the 2019 General Election?
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u/-PsychoDan- Cameronite 2d ago
The only way I can see the tories seeing off reform is making Nigel Farage the leader of the conservatives. Reform voters probably won’t settle for anything else.
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u/dirty_centrist Centrist 2d ago
We are at a demographic inflection point.
They can either go after their older voters who are deserting to reform due to the Conservative party being defacto proimmigration, or they can chase the younger voters who they've abandoned to Labour.
Spoiler: The first party that figures out housing will clean up.
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u/major_clanger Labour 2d ago
I don't know, farage has been wishy washy about the NHS & pensions - the biggest issues for older voters.
If you start sowing seeds of doubt on reforms commitment to these, dig up comments Nigel made about the NHS etc it might bear fruit.
Don't get me wrong, I would love housing to go to the top of the political agenda, it & the planning system are the cause of almost all our woes, but I think we're a long way from that, you'd need homeowner's to become a minority amongst voters for that to happen I think.
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u/dirty_centrist Centrist 2d ago
dig up comments Nigel made about the NHS etc it might bear fruit.
In a sensible media landscape he would be hoisted for talking down the national religion, but old people have somehow been convinced private healthcare will somehow magically pay to reduce their waiting time.
you'd need homeowner's to become a minority amongst voters for that to happen I think.
"We can't fix the country untill you lot are all dead or serfs" is such an awful thing for us to agree on.
I'm convinced one western country will figure this out and then be able to run their economy twice as hot. A bit like swapping from wood to charcoal.
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u/The_Nunnster One Nation 1d ago
The more we try to fight Reform and “see them off”, the stronger they’ll become. Kemi Badenoch has already shown that, much to her own embarrassment. We only “saw off” UKIP because they were a single issue party and we pledged a referendum on EU membership, plus Farage ended up leaving them. The same way the Brexit Party didn’t poll as well in 2019 because our whole rhetoric was “Get Brexit Done”, plus they stepped down in incumbent Conservative seats.
We need to realise that we often have more in common with them than against. We should be rebranding the party image to shed our reputation for immigration failures since 2010 and work with Reform to dogpile Labour. Farage saw how popular he was last year at our conference when he turned up as a journalist, he is popular with grassroots Tories, myself included. Don’t forget he used to be a Tory before Maastricht.
And I wouldn’t worry too much about the rightward shift benefiting the Lib Dems. That’s what people were banging on about last time, but the truth is the Lib Dems got barely more votes than 2019. They just picked up seats because we collapsed and they had traditionally been second place. Reform is and always will be a bigger risk than the Lib Dems, but Reform can also be courted if we play our cards right.
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u/ParsnipPainter green conservative 3d ago
Outflanking will never work, because reform's whole thing is being the most extreme on immigration. If you're playing their game, you're losing.
The best bet is as you said, to focus on their weak points; not supporting Ukraine, the NHS, pensions etc. The problem is that you need media to challenge them on that too, but they won't, because focussing on immigration sparks controversy. And controversy means attention.
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u/AyeItsMeToby 3d ago
That’s also quite ridiculous.
The public aren’t going to accept the Tory record on immigration just because Reform don’t support Ukraine.
Immigration has been the #1 issue for a decade now. You can’t coddle behind other policies and ignore the single biggest issue, that relates to nearly everything else.
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u/ParsnipPainter green conservative 3d ago
It's been made no 1 issue because the tories have been leaning in to the issue giving it more traction.
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u/AyeItsMeToby 3d ago
Or maybe it’s the number one issue because it’s something people see and feel every day?
Changes in communities has never been so accelerated.
It can also be tied to every other issue people have, eg healthcare, house prices, decline in public services.
The Conservatives got nearly wiped off the map because they didn’t take immigration seriously for fourteen years. You cannot genuinely be proposing to do the same.
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u/ParsnipPainter green conservative 3d ago
If that were the case, then anti-immigration and racist sentiments would be highest in areas with more immigrants. But what we see is the exact opposite. It's those who don't interact with other races/nationalities who are most opposed.
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u/AyeItsMeToby 3d ago
That’s true, there was definitely no correlation between the location of the summer riots and immigrant/asylum seeker communities.
It’s also a pure coincidence that London, the city with the highest population of immigrants, struggles the most with the price of houses.
It’s also pure chance that Reform are taking up a sizeable chunk of the vote in present polls, and sheer luck that Boris’ immigration cutting manifesto dominated in 2019, and an anomaly that the Brexit vote was won on an anti-immigration platform, and inexplicable that UKIP dominated mid-2010s politics…
The immigration battle was lost 10 years ago, the Conservative party need to keep up. It’s far too high, and been going on for far too long. We cannot afford it.
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u/ParsnipPainter green conservative 3d ago
The riots were pretty much nationwide, and often the racists had to travel into the towns/cities to pick fights. So no, there wasn't correlation.
House prices in London are so high because it's the capital city and centre of government and many other businesses making it a highly saught after place to live. Trying to pin it on immigrants is beyond clutching at straws, almost funny.
Immigration is dominating because the tories kept going on about it. All the things you've listed can be explained by a media and political obsession, just as well as by genuine xenophobic beleifs. My point is that all the things you list share a common cause: an attempt by Tories to appease the right wing by being "Better on immigration" than them.
You've shown a correlation, but not a causation. Your explanation still begs the question of "why did xenophibia skyrocket in 2016, given that there had been no significant change in immigration between 2015-2016?"
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u/AyeItsMeToby 3d ago edited 3d ago
If you genuinely believe that importing millions of people per year has absolutely nothing to do with house prices or the state of social services, you can continue to lose every election.
It only takes a few google searches to find the statistics on social housing in London. Again, if you don’t see any correlation between migration, social housing occupancy and availability, and house prices - feel free to lose every election.
Only 8% of GP appointments in London are taken up by British citizens. Do you think this is normal? Okay? Sustainable? Surely not. Do you think voters see these statistics and don’t care? Do you think Ukraine is a bigger vote winner than these statistics?
I don’t understand how you can call yourself a conservative if you’re unwilling to conserve the very communities of this country.
Unless you truthfully believe that over one million people per year entering the country is sustainable and you can make that case to the population, then immigration is going to be an issue at the next election.
You can’t hide behind “the Tories and the media made it an issue!!1!” when you can go outside and see the effects of immigration every day. It’s not a media issue. It’s a lived experience issue.
Even if the Tories do stick their fingers in their ears and pretend it’s not an issue, Reform will make it an issue. Even Labour are making it an issue - see Starmer’s speech a few weeks back.
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u/ParsnipPainter green conservative 2d ago
Only 8% of GP appointments in London are taken up by British citizens
I've not been able to find this stat anywhere, would you mind sending me a link?
If you genuinely believe that importing millions of people per year has absolutely nothing to do with house prices or the state of social services, you can continue to lose every election.
I didn't say that was the case, but I do think it's minimal compared to the failure for 40-odd years to build sufficient social housing to even keep up with British citizens, combined with the perverse incentives surrounding land use.
The collapse of public services is far more down to a chronic underfunding for the past 15 years, and obsession with individualism and "free markets" for the last 40. Instead of fostering strong communities, and public services on which to build a prosperous nation.
I am proud to live in a country that has historically, been welcoming to asylum seekers, and people from around the world generally. Our leading of the industrial revolution and medical sciences makes me proud too.
Don't get me wrong, I do think immigration is too high, but it is (often multinational) businesses wanting the cheap labour driving it. What we need is to punish businesses for not following employment law in attempts to undercut British workers. Uber, Deliveroo, and fruit picking farms are all prime examples of this. Remember during COVID when Johnson chartered a flight from Eastern Europe to bring over foreign workers to pick fruit? This was because farmers refused to follow employment law when British workers demanded it. It's systemic.
You can’t hide behind “the Tories and the media made it an issue!!1!” when you can go outside and see the effects of immigration every day. It’s not a media issue. It’s a lived experience issue.
Again, those who actually live in mixed neighbourhoods aren't the ones puching xenophobia. You seen the demographics of Reform's constituencies? Hardly cultural melting pots...
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u/AyeItsMeToby 2d ago
>I've not been able to find this stat anywhere, would you mind sending me a link?
>I didn't say that was the case, but I do think it's minimal compared to the failure for 40-odd years to build sufficient social housing to even keep up with British citizens, combined with the perverse incentives surrounding land use.
Two things can be true at the same time. We don't build enough houses _and_ we import too many people which fills the houses too quickly.
>The collapse of public services is far more down to a chronic underfunding for the past 15 years, and obsession with individualism and "free markets" for the last 40.
Laughable and un-conservative. The NHS has never been funded more per capita than under the Tories. If that is still not enough, it is the NHS' fault. I do not want yet more of my income being handed over to the cult of the NHS. The problem is a zealous fear of private efficiency in our healthcare, despite the continental examples of blended private healthcare working. If we are taxed too much and get too little in return, perhaps it is the system that is at fault?
>I am proud to live in a country that has historically, been welcoming to asylum seekers, and people from around the world generally.
I too am proud, when we can afford it. We can't afford it. British citizens should always come first, and we know that that is not what is occurring presently in councils up and down the country. Again, one only needs to look at social housing statistics in London, Birmingham, etc.
>Again, those who actually live in mixed neighbourhoods aren't the ones puching xenophobia.
I would be surprised if immigrant communities say there are too many immigrants. One can easily verify that it is the post-industrial north and working class communities opposed to further importing of cheap labour: and the reasoning is simple, the undercutting of wages.
It is frankly absurd to try and tackle these issues without taking a sledgehammer to the current immigration and asylum systems. It is interconnected with every part of society that is broken. The Tories tried ignoring it for 10 years: look where that got them.
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u/major_clanger Labour 3d ago
It kinda happened at the last election, where he got scrutiny over his Ukraine stance. Think that really hurt them (and rightly so).
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u/what_am_i_acc_doing Traditionalist 3d ago
Johnson lost his credibility when he liberalised immigration policy even further.
Jenrick had the right idea in trying to outflank Farage to the right but not charismatic enough to pull it off.
Most people have deep mistrust of the uni party after spending their entire life being gaslit. Hard to argue against trying something new.
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u/StormyBA Verified Conservative 2d ago
The current Conservative party should dissolve. ReformUK then renames to "The Conservative Party".
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u/Thamor2233 3d ago
Or simply focus on policies that will pull in the worker class voters? Labour this, Tories that. Just tell me how you're going to improve my life.