Reform is yet to entice Tory MPs, but signs change is coming

Good morning. Lee Anderson has joined Reform UK, his third party in six years, becoming Reform’s first sitting MP. It is a big event in the life of the Conservative party and of Reform. Some thoughts on exactly why below.

Push and pull of the right

Given that Rishi Sunak had removed the whip from Lee Anderson after he said that Islamists had “control” of the London mayor Sadiq Khan, the former deputy chair can reasonably be described as having jumped after he was pushed. That said, we shouldn’t let that blind us to the fact it is still a big coup for Reform.

Will other MPs follow suit? Maybe but I think it’s unlikely. Many Conservative MPs, including ones who are pretty Reform-minded in their politics, are dubious about the party’s electoral mojo. They note that Ukip was doing much better in by-elections when it was polling at a similar level (Reform stands at about 11 per cent, according to the FT poll-of-polls). They wonder why, if Reform really is doing as well as the polls suggest, the party couldn’t even muster a decent showing in Mid-Bedfordshire or Wellingborough or Tamworth, all constituencies where for a variety of reasons Reform ought to have been able to make decent inroads into the Tory vote.

Conservative MPs with longer memories know too, that Nigel Farage’s parties have tended to fall short when it comes to general elections. They remember when Ukip was being forecast to win as many as 10 constituencies at a general election and in the end won just one, Clacton, where demographics were about as favourable as the party could hope for. They remember when Thurrock and Thanet South were in the bag for Ukip, and they aren’t about to hitch themselves to Farage’s wagon and hope that it works out better this time.

If Reform can’t, at the least, beat the Conservatives into second place in Blackpool South — which faces a probable looming by-election — the party is not going to be able to persuade very many Tory MPs that they are better served at an election flying under Reform colours rather than Conservative ones. But while Reform still has some work to do to become an attractive home for disgruntled Tory MPs on the party’s right, it is already appealing to Conservative activists.

Anderson — a former Labour councillor who defected to the Conservatives in 2018 — had become a star turn at Conservative party fundraisers. (One Tory MP who is not a natural ally of Anderson’s, recently despaired to me that Anderson had become “the only speaker my association wants to hear from”.) He is popular among Conservative activists and his defection to Reform will inspire others in the membership and the Tory party’s local government base to follow suit. Indeed it already is: several MPs I spoke to yesterday told me that their local associations had lost members to Reform in the wake of the news.

Reform’s success in pulling away activists, ironically, reduces rather than increases the power of the party’s right. At present, one reason why essentially everyone at Westminster thinks Sunak’s replacement will be further to the right than he is, is that they don’t think a more moderate Conservative candidate can win a contested leadership election.

But don’t forget that it was not entryism but the “exitism” of the Labour party’s rightwingers that helped turn the party membership from one that chose David Miliband over Ed Miliband in 2010 to one that picked Jeremy Corbyn. (Don’t forget that, while the younger Miliband won thanks to his strength in the trade union section of Labour’s old electoral college, the older Miliband was the preferred choice of Labour party members.) Conservative members following Anderson to Reform could also shift the balance of forces within the Tory party.

One way or the other, Reform is going to reshape the Conservative party — just don’t rule out it doing so in a way that moves the Tories further from politicians such as Lee Anderson, rather than closer to it.

Now try this

This week, I mostly listened to Nikolai Kapustin’s Blueprint while writing my column.

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