"Who will win the tussle between the Conservatives and Reform?"
ConHome: 6th August 2024: Article by Sir John Redwood arguing what Conservative strategy should look like.
...The collapse in turnout in the recent election shows many were disillusioned with all the parties. People would say there is no point because they are all the same....
The Conservatives lost an astonishing 7.1 million votes compared to 2019. Labour lost 0.5 million despite its poor performance in 2019. The Lib Dems lost 200,000 but got cleverer at where they made most effort. They concentrated votes where they might create a win. Reform came from nowhere to be the third most popular party with 4.1 million votes. The Reform intervention helped Labour to win many more seats on low votes.
It took just 23,620 votes to elect a Labour MP, 56,422 a Conservative, and 831,332 a Reform MP.
The numbers indicate that the 7.1 million lost Conservative votes mainly came from people switching to Reform or staying at home. There were only 3.5 million Lib Dem votes in total, under half the number of votes the Conservatives lost...
...people want something different from the policies and approaches offered by Conservatives, Labour, and Lib Dems which is why they all lost votes. Conservatives got hit by far the hardest because they had been in office... The COVID lockdowns, the higher taxes, and the high legal migration policies were largely shared and supported by both Conservatives and Labour....