Nearly everywhere in the West, the centre-right is being replaced as the “mainstream” political party by the populist-right. The latest victim is the British Conservative Party. The Tories, who ruled Britain from 2010 to 2024, seemed like they were in one of the worst spots in decades in July of last year: they had lost an election to the Labour Party in stunning fashion, with Labour winning over 400 seats and the Tories being reduced to 121, giving up a whopping 254 seats and failing to break 25 per cent in the popular vote.
But less than a year later it is arguable that they are even worse off. And it is not because the Labour government has worked wonders. One the contrary, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is deeply unpopular, having made a series of opening decisions – like raising heating costs – which quickly dampened enthusiasm among his base and provided the weakened Tories with an opening.
Or at least, it should have helped the Tories. But it hasn’t. A look at polling reveals that they have in fact lost points since last year’s election.
The cause of their political pain? It is the same illness which has spread to centre-right parties across the continent: the rise of a populist-right party which actually is attempting to address societal concerns. Nigel Farage’s Reform UK won 14 per cent in last year’s elections, good for a respectable third place but (due to the United Kingdom’s first past-the-post system) only good enough for a handful of seats. But now, they’re cruising in the higher averages, having clearly passed the Tories and are – in some polls – even leading the Labour Party.
Farage’s rise is due to a mix of causes; some, like Brexit, seem Britain-specific. When Brexit happened, the Tories replaced one anti-Brexit prime minister, David Cameron, with another one, Theresa May. It was only when populist-ish Boris Johnson won power definitively in 2019 that the party finally sealed the deal. But even then, it was still a mess, confusing and not quite what was promised.
Even in this particularly British situation, there lies a lesson for Western politicians everywhere. When people speak, institutions must listen, or they must find a way to get the people to say something else. In the words of Mad Man Donald Draper, “If you don’t like what’s being said, change the conversation.”
The issue is that sometimes you can’t change the conversation. Sometimes people are doggedly determined to get their way and, in a democracy, that means they will pick someone else if you aren’t going to adhere to what they want.
And, even beyond Brexit, the British public are currently favouring Reform over all other parties because of one unsurprising issue: migration. Britain has experienced demographic change like few societies in the world today, due entirely to mass migration of peoples from around the world into the British aisles. One poll from 2023 had a majority desiring for immigration to be reduced – those numbers have not gone down since then.
This is a problem the Western centre-right has failed to grapple with for a decade now. They at first ignored the ongoing conversation – starting with Angela Merkel’s “Wir schaffen das!” (“We can handle this,” regarding the intake of migrants) in 2015. The issue, of course, was that Germany, and Europe as a whole, could not handle it. When they finally tried to play like they truly cared about migration, they were not really good at it – like Cinderella’s stepsisters, the shoe simply did not fit. Centre-right parties like the Austrian People’s Party and Merkel’s Christian Democrats all had been used to governing with other centrists in big happy grand coalitions and keeping taxes on banks low. Taking on a visceral, populistic approach to a hot-button social issue simply was not their style.
There were some individuals who tried, of course. Former Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz was one, first as foreign minister closing the “Balkan route” used by thousands of migrants and then, as chancellor, dragging his party to the right on the issue. But the old guard in the People’s Party was never comfortable with him and constantly sniped from the sidelines; when he was forced from power in 2021, the party was left listless – and the now-dominant populist-right Freedom Party began to rise.
The Tories made the same mistakes. Over fourteen years of rule – and a majority in the United Kingdom affords a party a decent amount of power – the Tories continually promised to reduce migration numbers, especially illegal migration, but never delivered. Johnson, the supposed populist, likewise failed – and immediately upon taking office shut down the country with draconian COVID rules, ultimately losing power over his hosting of illegal parties while his people were locked down.
The new Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, started off by seeming to acknowledge these failures, saying outright that the Tories failed to control migration. But recently she declared the United Kingdom “a multi-faith, multi-ethnic, multicultural success story, and we believe that many of our greatest strengths derive from the diversity of our population.” The issue, of course, is that the modern United Kingdom, like the Tories and other Western centre-right parties, is not seen as much of a success by its people. Britain, and much of the rest of Europe, was once full of great states which ran the world. Their “greatest strength” in those times was found elsewhere.
As long as centre-right parties fail to realize this, the populist-right will continue to dominate. In a few years the Tories could be playing second-fiddle in a coalition with Prime Minister Nigel Farage.
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