PopCon Director, Mark Littlewood, writes that "it does seem that the penny is beginning to drop amongst both Conservatives and Reformers that the next government will need to focus, above all else, on a Great Restoration of Britain’s core constitutional principles."

We may already be in the dying days of this Labour government. Despite their enormous Parliamentary majority, they can’t seem to put forward any half-meaningful proposal and make it stick. Humiliating U-turns have therefore become their standard operating procedure. The problem for the country is that the dying days of Starmer’s government might number around 1,400 until we get a general election in 2029. Economic stagnation and national decline are likely to accelerate over that period.

An incoming government in four years’ time – whatever its exact complexion – is going to be faced with an enormous repair job. It might be possible for an opposition party to win an election by simply pointing out how appallingly bad this Labour government really is. But winning an election is only stage one of the process. If you lack a coherent plan for what you will do when you seize power, electoral success simply isn’t worth chasing. I present as Evidence A the abysmal record of the Starmer administration over its first twelve months in power. They seemed to think that simply replacing the Tories would be enough to turn around Britain. It hasn’t been.

Earlier this week, I was delighted to have the opportunity to sit down for an hour with Robert Jenrick and discuss the plight of both the Conservative Party and the country as a whole. If you missed this latest PopConversation, you can catch up with it below.

Senior opposition politicians like Robert face a tricky balancing act. On the one hand, they need to come up with a never-ending series of statements, campaigns and stunts which keep them in national media spotlight on a day-to-day basis. This naturally encourages a short-term mindset, taking the political battle one day at a time.

Simultaneously, whilst engaged in day-to-day tactical combat, they need to find the bandwidth to develop detailed, plausible policy over a much longer timeframe.

I think Robert did a pretty good job of this. In my discussion with him, he was able to move seamlessly from discussing his viral video hits around fare-dodging and stolen goods being traded at car boot sales to sketching out the need for a Great Repeal Act and a full reset of Britain’s judicial system.

Overall though, I think the Conservatives are still lacking a coherent narrative and are therefore struggling to get cut through with the public. The party needs to go beyond accepting that “mistakes were made” over fourteen years in office and explain why such mistakes were made. My view on this is very simple – the Tories doubled down on the disastrous Blairite constitutional settlement rather than attempting to unravel it.

The party leading in the polls – Reform UK – are doing so well for a number of reasons but key amongst them is that they have got the essential diagnosis right. Britain is broken and is going to need fixing. This isn’t just a question of tweaking a tax rate here or resetting spending priorities, but is something much more fundamental. They have yet to roll out any detailed proposals about exactly how they would reboot the UK’s governance structures but they do seem aware that it will be necessary.

Although we are probably in for a few years of things getting worse, it does seem that the penny is beginning to drop amongst both Conservatives and Reformers that the next government will need to focus, above all else, on a Great Restoration of Britain’s core constitutional principles.

In these grim and depressing times, that gives me some real cause for hope.

Keep the flag of freedom flying.