In the 2019 election, the British Conservative organization led by Boris Johnson was undisputedly successful. She won 43.8% of the votes – this was her best score since Margaret Thatcher's first win in 1979. This translated into 365 tickets, which gave the Tories a majority of 80 votes in the home of Commons – since the 1980s, the organization has not had specified comfort in governing. Commentators then predicted that given specified a leadership the Conservative Labour organization might request more than 1 word to think about returning to power.
Today, half a period before the July 6 election, according to Poll of Polls Politico portal The average polling advantage of the Labour organization over tories is 23 percent points. Poll of Polls diary “The Times” estimates it at 20 percent points.
Forecast The Electoral Calculus centre foresees that in the fresh home of Commons conservatives will hold only 80 tickets, more than 4.5 times little than 5 years ago. Forecast Sarvation centre provides for an even worse score of the party: 72 tickets. This would be twice as bad as the party's erstwhile worst score in its 200-year past of 1906 – erstwhile it won 156 tickets. Labourers would have a majority of 262 (!) votes. It would be an absolute disaster from which the Conservative organization could simply not rise.
Of course, the run lasts almost a period and much can change in it. There are beginning to appear polls where the Labour Party's lead has been falling below 20 percent points for the first time since 2022. The polls giving the organization a knockout triumph can demobilise any of its voters, including in districts where the consequence will be decided by a tiny majority of the votes. The belief that the country is not in danger of another Conservative word can besides encourage any Labour voters – disappointed by the party's position on the conflict in Gaza or the marginalization of the Corbyn left in the organization – to vote on Greens, smaller, extremist left-wing committees, or left-wing independent candidates – which may translate into a failure of mandates. However, any another script than winning the Labour Party, guaranteeing its independent majority in the home of Commons, seems very improbable today.
How did this happen? How was the Conservative organization so spectacular in little than 5 years able to squander its 2019 support?
Leadership
At the most basic level, this boils down to the quality of the party's leadership over the past 5 years: Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. In fact, conservatives are present found where they are, through Johnson's lies, the incompetence of Truss, and the deficiency of charisma and separation from Sunak's reality.
Tories after the large success of 2019 were not given long to enjoy the political honeymoon. The country shortly paralyzed the coronavirus pandemic, suspending the average functioning of society, economy and politics. In the first months, the pandemic served politically conservatives. Johnson records evidence endorsement rates the minute he himself fights with covid at the hospital.
However, in the area around May 2020, the assessment of how the government is coping with the pandemic is beginning to deteriorate. The British see that in all respect – health, economic, etc. – their country is doing worse than many countries on a akin level of development. In the area of November 2020, the average polling numbers of the 2 major British parties equalize.
Johnson's popularity nevertheless saves the fast improvement of a British vaccine and equally fast and effective vaccination action of the population. Johnson and his squad were able to convince a large part of the public that this would not be possible if the country were constantly entrenched in EU regulations. In the first months of 2021, the Tories regain a polling advantage over the Labourers.
At the end of the year, however, everything changes alleged Partygate. Public opinion learns in November and December 2021 that during the lockdowns at the Prime Minister's office on Downing Street there were social gatherings breaking the social distance rules introduced by the government itself. Johnson attended at least three. The country got mad. People, following the government's recommendations, for months gave up not only social life, but besides contact with loved ones, frequently at the expense of their intellectual well-being – now it turned out that the government that forced them to sacrifice themselves did not follow the rules it imposed on society. In addition, Johnson misled the parliament on the actual course of events.
Johnson alone by the strength of his colorful personality and charm could last political scandals that would sink any another politician. This time, however, he failed – the country felt that the Prime Minister had lost his moral right to direct the country. His organization colleagues concluded that they would either change the Prime Minister now or lose the next election. Although Johnson survived a vote trying to cancel him as Labour organization chairman, after resigning leading politicians from his cabinet he had no choice but to resign himself. In the first months of 2022 the Labour organization begins to overtake Conservatives in the polls.
Thatcher fantasy and “adult in peace”
As Johnson's successor, the Tories choose Liz Truss. This is how rapidly it will turn out, the worst possible choice. Truss represented the radically free marketplace wing of the party, convinced that brexit should be utilized for as far as possible deregulation of the British economy and taxation cuts, which will make a pro-development boost for the economy.
On September 23, little than 2 weeks after his appointment, Truss and her Chancellor of the Treasury – the equivalent of our Minister of Finance, traditionally the most crucial economical minister of the government – Kwatni Kwarteng announces the alleged mini-budget, containing many extremist taxation cuts, financed from debt. The task rapidly verified the markets, the pound dropped to the lowest value against the dollar in history. In view of the mass criticism of financial institutions, allies of the United Kingdom, British public opinion Truss dismissed Kwarteng and appointed Jeremy Hunt in his place, who withdrew from many decisions of the predecessor. This deepened the feeling of chaos. In October, Truss became the most unpopular premiere in history. After all, she did not last for 2 months.
The confusion around the mini-budget pushed the polling support of the Tories to 23 percent – since then it will never exceed 30 percent. What is worse for conservatives, since the fall of 2022 the Labourers began to be judged by the British public as a more competent organization in economical matters – although historically it was the Labour organization that was more strictly judged by the electorate.
Truss replaced the current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. After thatcherian fantasy at the head of the Sunak government was to reconstruct government policy to reasonableness and predictability, he was to be a proverbial adult in peace. The fresh Prime Minister was well regarded as the Chancellor of the Treasury in the days of the pandemic, which was the face of the workers' shield programs. At the same time, as Prime Minister, it works on average.
Especially as Prime Minister in charge electoral campaign. Sunak lacks charisma, is poorly able to deal with people. For a democratic leader of a country in respective parallel crises Sunak is just besides rich. Joint assets of the Prime Minister and his wife Akshata Murty estimated is at £651 million. I am not accidentally writing about my wife due to the fact that Sunak was promoted to the planet of the superrich thanks to his matrimony – Murty is the daughter of Indian billionaire N.R. Narayana Murthy, 1 of the founders of the giant IT industry, Infosys. Most of the couple's assets are Infosys stock.
Sunak, thanks to his wife's family's money, is richer than King Charles III present – the monarch's individual property is estimated to be "only" at £610 million. The property of £651 million makes Sunaka – according to any estimates – the richest British Prime Minister in history. The second-placed Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby – 3 times the government leader in the 1950s and 1960s – had a luck worth £450 million in today's prices.
Although Sunak constantly says he is simply a descendant of migrants, he grew up in a simple household of physicians and pharmacists, his parents sacrificed a lot to educate him in a prestigious private school, and he himself assisted in a household pharmacy and worked as a waiter on vacation, it will be very easy for the Laburians to introduce him as individual who has long been completely separated from how average people live.
Brexit gave, brexit picks up
As charismatic as Sunak would be, people after 15 years have had adequate of tories, which was contributed not only by the quality of leaders after 2019, but besides by deeper causes. Among them, brexit is crucial. As in 2019, the promise of closing the brexit issue at the end and respecting the will of society expressed in the 2016 referendum gave triumph to the Tories, so present the hangover after the brexit will most likely receive it.
By ‘Times’ analysis The top decline in Conservative support is noted present among voters in 2016 in favour of leaving the Union. In 2019 they were supported by 70% of this group, present only a third. Why the inheritance? due to the fact that in connection with the brexit the Tories promised various groups of voters quite a few things they could never deliver – even due to the fact that they were unconciliable among themselves.
For neo-thatcherism brexit was to open up a fresh era of deregulation and competitiveness of the British economy. However, this fantasy was radically verified by the complete defeat of the mini-budgets of Kwarteng and Truss. For folk voters from the alleged red wall – districts from central and northern England traditionally voting for Labourers – who in 2019 frequently sent to the home of Tory Commons for the first time in history, brexit marked the promise of a fresh industrial policy that would rebuild well-paid jobs for workers free of EU bureaucracy. Nothing like that happened. For those whose vote to leave the Union resulted from authoritarian social attitudes, the brexit was primarily intended to mark the end of migration. However, after leaving the Union, it turned out that the British economy inactive needs migrant work and illegal migration after "regaining control" is hard to control beyond the Union.
In total, both voters who have been against leaving the Union from the beginning may be angry with the Tories present – a large part of their concerns have been confirmed – as have those who voted in favour of the brexit and present see that their hopes for this process have not been fulfilled and that they could most likely never have been fulfilled.
Party of poorly educated pensioners
Conservatives have another structural problem: demographics. The only age group they're winning in today's polls are voters over 65. Among the voters aged 18–24, they are only fourth, behind Liberal Democrats and Greens. Like in “New Statesman” wrote late erstwhile Conservative politician David Gauke, the average voter of the organization is present a pensioner who finished his education at the age of 16, with strong conservative-authoritarian views. The interests, prejudices and preferences of this electorate present form organization politics, making it hard to scope another groups of voters.
How did this happen? British sociologist Phil Burton-Cartledge explanations She's looking for that policy in the time of Thatcher's housing policy. Thatcher, allowing tenants to buy out homes and apartments with a bonus, created a new, conservative electorate—property tenants. At the same time, erstwhile her governments faced a dilemma: to grow the number of owners, hoping that this would bring a fresh electorate, or to take care of the interests of those who have already self-depreciated and feel grateful to the Conservatives for it – that is, the group who wants the property prices to rise, the Tories chose the latter.
Their electorate present is frequently held in the time of Thatcher. The increase in property prices since then, especially in London, has frequently made them nominal millionaires. At the same time, the policy of successive governments after Thatcher made it hard for subsequent generations to get housing property – which was before that minute in life erstwhile the views of young voters began to become increasingly conservative.
After 13 years of Labour organization rule, the Conservatives returned to power in 2010, they further strengthened their relation with the elder electorate. Pensioners were 1 of the fewer groups excluded from the austerity policy that Cameron's government adopted in consequence to the large financial crisis. In the beginning of the erstwhile decade, Cameron's government adopted the rule that all year in April pensions are to be valued for the value of inflation or for an average wage growth rate, or by 2.5% – whichever is the highest in a given year.
This solution was to be temporary, it has been in operation for the second decade. This year, Sunaka's government offers more gifts to elder citizens – although they are hard to justify with social justice. Statistically, According to “New Stateman”, present there are more households in the UK made up of pensioners with assets worth more than £1 million – the majority of them are mostly residential property – than those surviving in poverty.
However, the Tories have good political reasons for caring for their older, mostly little educated electorate. It has an alternate in the form of the Nigel Farage improvement Party. Sunak acts as if he knows that there is no way to regain the support of the younger voters, and if he does not want the disaster to change into a full disaster, he must maximise the right-wing seniors. Hence, the proposal to reconstruct compulsory civic service to young people – although it will cost tories of leftover votes in the young electorate, it can besides appeal to the authoritarian sensitivity of any seniors, convinced that young people are besides well and could usage any discipline in institutions like the military.
It wasn't a good 14 years.
So everything indicates that the Tories time is moving out. How can you sum up these 14 years? How do 18 years of Thatcher and Major regulation compare? Even from the assumptions of close conservatives, they are hard to appreciate as success.
They were marked primarily by the tragicomedia brexit. Cameron promised a referendum if he got the independent majority in 2015 due to the fact that he didn't believe it was a likely scenario, he hoped for further coalition governments with Liberal Democrats. He then decided that he would win the referendum and thus pacify the Eurosceptic wing of the organization forever.
Brexit caused large chaos, the Conservative organization itself was incapable to find for a long time what kind of divorce it wanted with the Union. Today, erstwhile it happened, no of the brexit's promises materialised, and the British economy is in a worse state than it would have been if it had remained in the Union.
The organization is divided, lacking leadership and direction. It was unsuccessful in giving it to the organization and country no of the prime ministers after 2010.
Thatcherism against the background of the last 14 years of government had a clear direction, he knew what he wanted, changed irreparably Britain, forced deep reforms into the Labour organization without which she had no chance to return to power. In addition to the brexit disaster, it is hard to identify how conscious, strategical leaders from 2010–2024 changed the country. Therefore, it should not be amazing that the British will decide in early July that the Conservative organization has burned out in the present expression and it needs years in opposition to renew itself.
