Our Managing Director of Public Affairs Chris White analyses what the election results means for the Conservatives
The scale of this victory for the Conservatives is astonishing. Not only has the party broken the stasis in Parliament that has lasted most of the five years, it has done so in an emphatic way. With one seat still to declare, the Tories have a working majority of 87 – the largest the Conservatives have seen since the 1980s.
A political earthquake and delivering One Nation Conservatism
In doing so they have taken seats they haven’t held for 50 years or more in a significant realignment of British politics – Bishop Auckland (1935), Bolsover (1950), Newcastle Under Lyme (1918), Workington (1918) and Wrexham (1922) all fell to the Conservatives on a night which was lamentably bad for Labour.
Boris Johnson successfully tapped into the frustration of working class northern and midlands voters who felt ignored by Labour and frustrated by the lack of progress on Brexit. The higher the share of workers in low-skilled, blue-collar jobs, the better the Tories fared relative to Labour and the Lib Dems.
The Prime Minister recognised this in his victory speech, saying “your hand may have quivered over the ballot paper before you put your cross in the Conservative box and you may intend to return to Labour next time round.” The next five years represents a huge opportunity for the Conservatives to deliver a truly transformational agenda for northern working class towns, embedding the gains they have made.
Newly elected Conservative MPs will be under pressure to deliver for their constituents who have a different set of concerns to raise in constituency surgeries than the Tories may be used to, particularly around alleviating poverty, regeneration of northern towns, better infrastructure and good quality employment.
This could shift the direction of the Conservative Party to focus more on supporting the lowest-paid and blue-collar workers, and doing so would truly deliver on his pledge to govern in the One Nation Conservative tradition. Fail to do so, and the Conservatives may find the next election challenging without the central issue of Brexit to campaign on.
One thing the Conservatives may well do is look again at the uneven nature of the UK’s constituency boundaries. Despite the Coalition Government introducing a cut in the number of MPs by 50, and a review of constituency boundaries across the UK, this has never been implemented due to the uncertain political situation. Acting to equalise the size of constituency boundaries would be crucial electoral reform.
Getting Brexit done
A majority of nearly 90 means the Conservatives can now make significant progress on ‘getting Brexit done’. Next week will see Parliament return with the Queen’s Speech on Thursday, and the Withdrawal Agreement Bill likely to have its Second Reading on Friday.
The PM is keen to show progress on this Bill and there should be little problem getting this rattled through the Commons. With a sizeable majority, plenty of new Conservative MPs keen to demonstrate loyalty, coupled with the retirements of the likes of Oliver Letwin and failure of many of the Conservative Brexit rebels such as David Gauke and Dominic Grieve to be re-elected, there simply won’t be the votes prevent Brexit happening.
While the Conservatives don’t have a majority in the Lords, it is hard to see the Lords blocking the passage of a Bill that was so clearly the central tenet of the Conservative manifesto and election campaign. What will be interesting is whether some of the ‘concessions’ drafted into the Bill presented at the end of the last Parliament will survive. For example, will Parliament now have a vote on extending transition, on scrutinising new EU laws in the transition, approving the negotiating mandate for future talks, and ratifying any future relationship treaties?
It may be some of these get cut from the reintroduced Bill. Regardless of this, I’d expect to see the Bill completed before 31st January, although that simply marks the end of the beginning. The key question for 2020 will be what the UK’s future relationship with the EU will be, and whether that can be agreed and ratified before the end of the transition period in December 2020, a period that the PM has refused point-blank to extend.
The future of the Union
While the Conservative Party made substantial gains in England and Wales, it slipped back in Scotland, losing seven seats to the SNP, who gained 13 overall to take all but eleven of the seats in Scotland.
Nicola Sturgeon was quick to jump on the Conservatives’ poor performance. Despite the fact that not everyone who voted for the SNP may want another referendum, she pledged to send a letter to the PM before Christmas requesting that Holyrood be given the power to hold a second independence referendum. Boris Johnson has previously vowed to deny another referendum, but doing so would spark huge, partly confected, outrage in Scotland that their democratic choice is being ignored.
Just five years since the last referendum, and once again the ties of the Union are weakening. In Scotland Nicola Sturgeon is resurgent, and there is no charismatic Ruth Davidson as leader of the Conservative Party to vigorously campaign for the Union. The Unionists in Northern Ireland lost two seats, including their Westminster Leader Nigel Dodds, to add to a Conservative Party that has accepted a border in the Irish Sea in order to deliver Brexit. How quickly the political weather changes.
Conclusion
It has been a fantastic night for the Conservatives, but their work is only just beginning. The next five years will dramatically change the country, from its future relationship with Europe potentially to the very makeup of the UK itself. The Conservatives have their majority and their mandate – it will be fascinating to see if Boris Johnson will now govern as a One Nation Conservative.
