John Oxley is a consultant, writer, and broadcaster. His SubStack is Joxley Writes.
The process for selecting the next leader of the Conservative Party (and, dare we hope, prime minister) is now formally underway. Over the next few months, first MPs and then members will whittle an ambitious field down to a single winner.
It is perhaps the most significant decision the party will make for some time – vital not just for the party’s recovery but maybe even its survival. Finding the person with the right qualities is essential.
Being the leader of the opposition is an unglamorous and hard job. It is very different from being prime minister. It is not about leading a country, executing policy and making tough decisions when the nation faces its biggest threats. It is instead about leading a party, building it up from electoral defeat, winning over voters and holding the government to account.
That is no easy task, especially after an electoral defeat as convincing as the one the party has just suffered. In the fifty or so years since Edward Heath resigned as party leader, there have been 12 permanent leaders of the opposition. Only four subsequently became prime minister.
In the litany of people who have held the role, the failures stand out as much as the successors. On the right, there’s Iain Duncan Smith, who fared so poorly he didn’t even face a general election. For Labour, the names Foot, Miliband, and Corbyn have become synonymous with electoral failure. The Conservatives can ill-afford adding another name to that list.
Throughout this process, it’s crucial for the party to shake out who will be most effective for the party now. The contest should look at candidates in the round – not just who we align with most politically but who will do the best job holding Labour to account and winning voters to the Conservative cause.
Where parties have erred in the past, it has typically been because they have put political purity and internal popularity ahead of capability and appeal to the wider world.
The grim reality of being in opposition is that few people will listen to much of what you say. The Conservatives will receive limited attention for two or three years as Sir Keir Starmer settles into power.
The first challenge for a leader will be managing this and using limited air space effectively. We need someone who can hone a message and communicate it strategically, using limited exposure to build a narrative against Labour that runs together, rather than taking potshots that look confused and opportunistic.
On top of that, the party needs someone who uses the fallow period to restore the party as an organisation. The 2024 campaign went poorly and exposed the faults in the party machine that had been left unaddressed for too long.
In many places, the voluntary party has withered too much to fight effectively. In other areas, CCHQ often feels like it frustrates rather than facilitates the hard work of committed volunteers. A new leader must get to grips with the organisation and return it to peak effectiveness.
Our members and MPs also have to think carefully about who can best connect with a wide range of voters in the run-up to the next election. It is inevitable that the grassroots of the party will be more dedicated to the party than swing voters. That means having a different view of the party and where it should be from those who occasionally mark the box on election day.
However, as Labour’s Corbyn experiment showed, appealing overwhelmingly to your core isn’t the way to election success.
The Tories need to win back seats from all directions to improve our position. Yes, we need to take on Reform and win back the voters they have siphoned away, but we also need to pull back those who switched to the Liberal Democrats and Labour.
More than that, the party must remember how a disliked leader can motivate the other side. Part of the reason the party was so successful in 2019 was that Corbyn drew out so many people who wanted to vote against him – with that threat gone, many stayed home this time, because they thought they could risk Starmer winning.
Each candidate who puts themselves forward to take over the party will have their strengths and weaknesses. It is unlikely that one person will excel at everything required to pull the party back towards power. It is, however, essential they understand the scale of the challenge and have the appetite for meeting it.
Another critical element in looking for a next leader is how dedicated they are to the hard graft of reforming a party and the leadership and teamwork essential to pulling it all together.
Many of the party’s failings in government were due to an inability to get things done. We were fine at making announcements but poor at the follow-up. This is a big reason for the party losing – and it will not wash in opposition.
On a policy front, we don’t have to worry about implementing anything at all. But when rebuilding the party, we need more than just soundbites if voters are to take us seriously.
The best leader will be the one who can get into all these challenges and move things forward. But looking at past leadership races, especially in opposition, it’s easy to judge candidates based on the wrong metric.
All parties have made the mistake of picking leaders whose politics or personality they like but who are ill-suited to the actual job of running a party. It usually ends in poor results and an extended period in opposition. The Conservatives, so badly bruised by the last election, can’t afford to waste time.
Through the leadership election, the best scrutiny should be focused on how the candidates plan to push the party back to power. We need to see that they have the desire to fix the things that have gone wrong in the organisation and to forge the sort of voter coalition that could win in 2029.
It is also important to see they have the capacity and skills to make it happen. This is not simply a contest of who the bulk of the party agrees with most, but who has the talent, plan and national appeal to win again. The day after the next election, most of us would surely prefer a Tory we disagree with on a few things in Downing Street than another five years of Labour.
