Gavin Rice is the Project Director of “Future of Conservatism” at the think tank Onward.
This week on ConservativeHome I’ve been laying out some of the key findings from Onward’s major post-election analysis, Breaking Blue.
The second piece focused on which voter groups the Conservatives most urgently need to win back and their priorities. Liberal Democrat and Reform defectors are more likely to come back to the Tories, and these voters are actually more similar than they are different.
I also introduced the “super-demographics” – traits that are common among voters the Tories absolutely must win back due to their electoral importance under first-past-the-post.
But what about the longer-term prospects for the Conservative coalition?
In this third and final part I’m going into a new (and original) part of the Breaking Blue research. This was a deep analysis by Focaldata of how the UK electorate has changed and morphed going back to 1986, based on dozens of post-election surveys.
This identified seven core ideological groups within the electorate and revealed how political parties have won and lost these groups over time. Achieving a winning coalition from across these segments is vital to winning a parliamentary majority.
These segments are:
- Thatcherites: socially conservative and economically right-wing
- Christian Democrats: socially conservative and economically centrist
- Right-Liberals: socially liberal and economically right-wing
- Traditional Left: socially conservative and economically left-wing
- Social Democrats: socially liberal and economically centrist
- New Left: socially liberal and economically left-wing
- Mainstream voters: socially and economically centrist
The segments of the British electorate by cultural and economic beliefs
Generally, Thatcherites, Christian Democrats and Right-Liberals have historically been more likely to vote Conservative; the Traditional Left, New Left and Social Democrats have been more likely to vote Labour. The Mainstream group fluctuates; the winning party has won a plurality of these voters at every general election studied.
To win a majority it’s necessary for a party to win its core three groups, carry the Mainstream and make inroads into at least one of the opposite party’s groups. Sir Tony Blair, for example, was able to reach into Right-Liberals by crafting a more free-market position on the economy.
David Cameron effectively consolidated the Tory base, hyper-efficiently targeted Liberal Democrats and won the Mainstream, but was less able to reach into the left-leaning groups. The 2015 coalition therefore had a low “ceiling” (Cameron only secured a majority of 13) but a high “floor”.
From 2016 onwards the Conservatives managed to gain much higher levels of support from Traditional Left voters, partly on the back of Brexit momentum but also due to pledges to cut immigration and level up left-behind regions.
These voters tend to be more working-class, less southern, are usually white and tend to live in historically Labour seats. Only 16% of Traditional Left voters supported the Tories in 2016, but by 2017 this had risen to 38% and as high as 43% by the time of the 2019 election. This has been described as the “realignment”.
At the same time, in 2019 the party managed to retain Right-Liberal voters who are usually more southern and largely backed Remain, as they were more opposed to Jeremy Corbyn than to Boris Johnson.
Arguably this coalition was less stable due to the conflicting interests and priorities of the constituent groups. Johnson’s coalition had a higher ceiling – he could reach more types of voters – but a lower floor (the coalition was more volatile). A question for the future is whether Traditional Left and Right-Liberal voters can be persuaded to vote the same way again.
Vote intention of political segments, 1986 – 2024
From 2020-21 onwards, Conservative support collapsed among all right-leaning voter segments, with the party winning just half of all Thatcherites – the most loyal Conservative group. Its support from the Traditional Left collapsed back to pre-Brexit levels. Of voters who backed the Tories in 2019, 21% of Christian Democrats voted Reform, 20% of Thatcherites and 25% of the Traditional Left. And 17% of Traditional Left Conservative voters went back to Labour.
2024 vote of 2019 Conservative voters by political segment
Do these groups differ significantly in their policy priorities? To a not insignificant degree, yes. In particular, Traditional Left voters are – as you might expect – much more in favour of higher taxation and spending on services such as the NHS. While support for immigration cuts is widely supported across all right-leaning groups, Right-Liberals are much less restrictionist than Thatcherites, Christian Democrats or the Traditional Left.
Views of 2019 Conservative voters on immigration levels, by political segment
Preferred immigration policies among 2019 Conservative voters, by political segment
And while there is commonality between voter segments on what would persuade them to consider voting Conservative again, there are notable divergences between the component groups of the 2019 coalition.
Reducing immigration is a stand-out priority for Christian Democrats, but increasing public spending is much more popular with the Traditional Left than with Right-Liberals or Thatcherites. There is tension within the right-leaning coalition in particular over economic policy, where the interests of southern and more free-market Conservatives conflict with the demands of Traditional Left voters for more spending on services.
At the same time, tackling crime, taking on “woke” politics, reducing immigration and increasing spending command a range of support from across core and target segments, including the Mainstream.
What could the Conservative party do to increase the chances of voting for them again? (2019 Conservative defectors by voter segment)
What lessons can be drawn from all this?
First, there is a real question mark over the relationship between Right-Liberals and the Conservative Party. They have been the most alienated by Brexit and, while they (along with most voters) are immigration restrictions, they give less priority to the issue than other right-leaning groups.
Their economic values are similar to those of Thatcherites, who form the core Tory base, but diverge from those of more interventionist Christian Democrats and Traditional Left voters who desire more economic security. There is a lot of “cake-ism” revealed by our research, with voters favouring both tax cuts and spending increases.
This will need to be navigated by the next Leader of the Opposition with candour, and conflicting views between target groups will have to be navigated.
But there is also a real question over whether the 2019 coalition can ever come back – Traditional Left Leave voters have either reverted to Labour or Reform in large numbers, and it will be hard to win them while Reform exists. At the same time, as explored in Part 1, the post-2016 realignment is still on, with over 70% of Leave voters backing either the Conservatives or Reform.
All electoral majorities are by definition coalitions – that’s how our political system works.
But in addition to the short and medium-term causes of the 2024 Tory defeat, there is a long-term trend to be navigated. This is equally true for Labour, which also has a strained coalition and has lost votes to Reform, the Liberal Democrats and Greens. UK politics is becoming more fragmented.
But for now, the essay question is this: how will the Conservatives address the divergent views of their target voter coalition on immigration and the economy?
The Cameron era formula had a low ceiling and may not be coming back – too many voters left it over Brexit. But the Johnson formula – while it won a range of voters across the country – may be hard to recover given its inherent tensions. If the Traditional Left who joined the party during the realignment period isn’t the target, then who is?
What the party cannot do is try to ride two conflicting ideological horses – it will need to pick a direction and accept there will be losses as well as gains.
As laid out before, there is a route back for the Conservative Party.
Britain – and in particular England – remains a centre-right country, and the party’s lost voters still hold conservative underlying values. But now, the next leader — be it Kemi Badenoch or Robert Jenrick — needs to figure out how to target those voters with honesty and consistency. Breaking Blue finds that many of those who left the Tories in 2024 may not have abandoned the party for good, but they will need a lot of convincing to give it a fair hearing in five years’ time.
