Sam Collins, PopCon's Head of Public Affairs and former New Zealand National Party candidate, looks back to National's catastrophic defeat in 2002 to see what lessons could be learned by the Tories

Conservatives in only two Anglosphere countries have experienced the type of utter electoral disaster visited upon the British Conservatives at the last election. While much has been made of the Canadian experience of 1993, where the upstart Reform Party consigned the governing Conservatives to effective extinction, it is not the best comparison.

There are two great differences between the Canadian Reform Party and the British one. The first is what they represented. In many ways the original Reform Party represent more of a UKIP, Brexit Party, SNP or Plaid Cymru type – one where other policies have an important role, but constitutional and sectional issues form the heart of their appeal to the electorate. Reform UK is a very different beast – a party which, though based on protest, is one with real ideas for government.

The other great difference between the British and Canadian Reform parties is, frankly, the result. Reform Canada used their localised support in the Western and Prairie Provinces (particularly Alberta and British Columbia) to overtake the Conservatives in both seats and votes. Reform UK, despite an impressive nationwide result and around one hundred second-placed finishes, did neither.

This is definitely not an argument that the British Tories should be blasé about Reform. Far too many Tories seem hell bent on ignoring the lessons of Reform’s success. It does, however, mean that the British Conservative Party has their destiny in their own hands in a way their Canadian cousins did not.

The first of the two New Zealand examples of appalling election results (I use the plural because the National Party apparently enjoyed the first catastrophic defeat so much that they indulged in another one 18 years later) in 2002 is a closer example of where the Tories are today.

A split and ungovernable parliamentary party, led by a fundamentally good man who lacked political nous. A populist party on the right eating up oxygen in the media and taking voters, money and attention from the traditional right wing party. A small, seemingly inoffensive centrist party stealing votes in key heartlands without actually articulating any serious policy. Questions over who the standard bearer for the right in the aftermath of such a crushing defeat would be. All of these statements represent the position of National in 2002 as much as today’s Tories. If anything, the position of the National Party was even worse. Unlike here where Labour won a massive majority on a weak base, Labour’s vote was some 20% ahead of National and left the party a far greater hill to climb in order to form a government.

It is what happens next that is instructive, however. The leadership passed to outspoken right winger Don Brash. Brash saw it his goal to unapologetically assault the Labour Government from the right – diagnosing the problem National faced previously as not sufficiently differentiating themselves from Labour. In response he aimed to draw robust dividing lines between the two main parties and hammer the government on policy failures where the average voter was on their side. The language used by Brash was hard hitting and, for many, uncomfortable. However, it chimed with the frustrations of many Kiwi voters.

The 2005 election saw National almost double their vote share to 39% and pushed the combined right into a hairsbreadth from government. It would be a different leader who brought the party back into government in 2008. But it took the Brash (by name and nature) approach to bring the right back together and set the foundations for a return to government.

The Tories obviously cannot simply copy and paste this approach. We live in a different political world, and one unfortunately where the weakest points for Labour are merely extensions of the previous government’s policy. Leadership candidates claiming to oppose Labour’s net zero madness, or a high tax economy, or nanny state smoking legislation have to come to terms with – and be honest about – the fact they all sat in Cabinets during the last 14 years that signed off the same sort of policies.

There is no question that the Conservatives need to pick a leader who will robustly take the fight to Labour on the economy, on migration and on repealing the legalistic straitjackets that have made the enactment of conservative policies almost impossible. They have to be willing to say hard truths and draw the ire of the BBC and Rory Stewart-style Tories. To do any other will simply further entrench the Reform’s support and make a path to victory all but impossible.

And this will have consequences for the Parliamentary Party. While all candidates seem to be pushing ‘unity’ as key campaign priorities, this ideal only works when all wings of the party can accept and agree the key tenets of what ‘conservatism’ is. The unpalatable – and unsayable – fact is that there are some Conservative MPs sitting in Westminster who share no real connection with Conservative ideas or ideology. Only by setting out a clear definition of what ‘conservatism’ looks like under their leadership that members can a new leader claim a mandate to pursue these policies in Opposition, and hopefully take into government.