The Calamitous Conservative Campaign
After the Tories lost their majority in the 2017 General Election, Matt Howlett looks at how the party needs to change if they are to stay as a strong electoral force in the future.
In the aftermath of the general election, considerable focus has been on the reasons why the Conservatives managed to blow a 20 point lead in the polls to lose their majority in the House of Commons. Much of the post-election criticism has been — rightly — aimed at Theresa May and the wooden and uninspiring campaign she led. However, to lose such a commanding lead takes more than just one element ruling against them, and this election saw the convergence of a number of concerning trends for the Tories in the long-term that, if ignored, could be disastrous for the future electoral success of the party.
It is important however, to put the general election result in some context before being too scathing in criticism. The Conservatives are still, relatively comfortably, the largest party; and after seven years of well-publicised austerity, to still be in a position of power after two general elections is a surprising feat in modern politics. Their percentage share of the vote also increased by 5.5% to a level not seen since Tony Blair’s 1997 landslide. It was only the largest concentration of votes to the two largest parties in decades that eroded away the majority.
That’s not to say there weren’t fundamental problems with the campaign. An embarrassing U-turn on social care proved to be particularly damning to their election chances, and was forced out of the Queen’s speech as a consequence of the election result. Theresa May’s apparent reluctance to debate her rivals and a restricted campaign also had a profound effect on the public’s perception of her. The rigid interviews she did do failed to inspire confidence, and with the media kept largely quiet at her campaign stops, she never connected with the voters she was trying to sway. Once her credibility was damaged, her entire campaign fell apart considering it was based solely on her ‘Strong and Stable leadership.’
But whilst cutting out PR disasters would have undoubtedly helped her campaign, the reasons for the Tories’ slide in the polls are much more complex; all it takes is one look on social media to see where much of the problem lies. Vociferous support of Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party is rife on every political feed you can find, and the very nature of social media is making grassroots campaigns such as this more effective than ever before.
In previous elections, this has been less of a problem because the Tories have been able to rely on the so-called “silent majority,” that has appeared to propel them to success in elections. However, their core support is much less active than that of the Labour Party. Moreover, the Labour Party has more than three times the number of paid up members then the Conservatives. Therefore, the Tory vote, as Theresa May has appeared to find out, is a lot less stable than has been in the past, and concerns over winter fuel payments have further alienated a core base of pensioners the Tories should have been counting on.
It appeared that Theresa May was banking on her core vote backing the party no matter what, whilst expecting a strong brexit stance to be enough to bring Labour leave voters over to the party. This clearly badly backfired, but why should the electorate have been expected to back a party who campaigned on such a negative platform? The same tactic was attempted in the London Mayoral election by launching a staggering smear campaign against Sadiq Khan. This incidentally also went wrong, and lessons have evidently not been learned.
What must be understood sooner rather than later is the need to offer the electorate reasons that the Tories are right for them, not why the other parties are wrong. It shouldn’t be surprising that first time voters appeared to overwhelmingly back Labour based on the two campaigns. Jeremy Corbyn offered young people a positive vision of their future by announcing bold plans to increase the minimum wage and scrap tuition fees, among many. The Tories’ response to this was simply to say the numbers don’t add up. However, to a certain extent, it didn’t matter whether Labour’s plans added up or not. It was a simple, but hugely effective manifesto that got young people excited about a Corbyn-led government.
There is nothing stopping the Tories from leading the same style of campaign. Theresa May should have continued with the theme of talents being the only barrier to success, and then backed this up in the manifesto. The success of Thatcher and Reagan in the 1980’s was built on a similar sense of optimism for the future. Mrs Thatcher offered residents living in council houses the chance to buy their homes for a discounted price, and whether you consider this wise or not, it was exactly the type of aspirational thinking that galvanised support.
Theresa May had a good starting point for this type of campaign when she offered her vision for Britain last year. However, the problem was her manifesto didn’t back this up. If a future Conservative party wants to encourage young people to vote for them, then you have to give them something to vote for. For example, a focus on improving school funding per pupil, or a much more ambitious house building policy would have been the perfect way to allow her party to pitch a hopeful message. As it was, the manifesto offered very little, and the Tories were forced on the defensive and resorted to unsubstantiated attacks on Jeremy Corbyn’s character.
The only solace of this election for the Conservatives is that the badly thought out manifesto has been largely trimmed down for the Queen’s Speech. Talk of a reduction in the rate of spending cuts and a ‘softer’ brexit from senior cabinet ministers also appear to suggest a willingness to do things differently. However, with the possibility of another general election within the next year being more and more likely, things must change quickly or risk losing their place in government altogether. Young people are not indebted to the Labour party, despite such generalisations, and if the Tories are to remain relevant in the decades to come, the negative campaigning rife in this election must come to an end.
