Dear Subscribers,
Recently polling suggests that support for Reform is growing, and would win more than a hundred seats in Parliament were an election to be held tomorrow. While some might find this encouraging, it does not necessarily get us any closer to a centre-right, pro-Brexit government. Leaders on the right of British politics, be they Conservative or Reform or independent, must find a way to work together, else they risk allowing an increasingly unpopular Labour Party to divide and conquer.
Could it be his year?
The Labour government is filling the 2025 diary with trips to Europe and meetings with EU officials. A major UK-EU summit is being planned for the first half of the year, on top of a separate meeting dedicated to security cooperation in February and fortnightly meetings between the Minister of State for the Constitution and European Union Relations (an ominous-sounding portfolio) and his EU counterpart.
Poland has assumed the 6-month rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union. The Polish government is expected to focus on security, in particular security from Russia. There are fears that the Trump administration will push for a deal that recognises Russian sovereignty over some or all of the Ukrainian territory it has captured, and that this will encourage Putin to try his luck elsewhere on the EU’s eastern border.
Poland leads the way
Elon Musk accused Keir Starmer of being complicit in the failure to prevent or prosecute rape gangs targeting young girls in the UK in a series of posts on X. The question that ought to worry the Prime Minister and those around him is to what extent Musk speaks for the incoming Trump administration, with which he is now so closely associated.
The new French Prime Minister has said that Barnier’s budget which was roundly rejected in Parliament will be the starting point for the budget he will have to bring before the legislature later this month. This is being sold as a ‘time-saving measure’ rather than an indication that the new budget will be the same in substance to its ill-fated predecessor, but it gives cause for pessimism about the new Prime Minister’s ability to find a novel way through the deadlock t the heart of French politics.
Media
Julian Jessop on the dodgy statistics bandied about by remainers and rejoiners.
William Reynolds on the future of UK defence.
Key Points
Both the Conservatives and Reform will be hoping that 2025 will be their year. Labour have stalled in office and Keir Starmer’s promises of change and growth seem increasingly hollow. Meanwhile, right-wing movements across Europe and the Anglosphere are on the rise: Germany will likely have a centre-right Chancellor after elections in February, the Conservative Party in Canada are in pole position to win a majority in October, and the Trump administration is preparing to hit the ground running later this month. An increasingly gloomy outlier, Britain seems ripe for a right-wing revival.
But the Conservatives and Reform should not see each other principally as rivals. Instead, they should see party politics as a means to an end. Their stated policy objectives differ only in detail and their rivalry seems to be more about clashing personalities than clashing worldviews. Both parties have a lot to gain from working (if not together) then in parallel rather than taking chunks out of one another at every opportunity.
The Conservatives must find a way to regain the trust of their core voters, who look back on 14 years of Conservative government and wonder how successive Prime Ministers failed to govern as genuine conservatives. Criticising or ridiculing a party whose raison d’etre is to provide a genuinely conservative alternative would give voters good reason to think that the Conservatives are still not serious about doing what they say they want to do.
Reform’s biggest hurdle is (for want of a better word) the snobbery of many conservative-minded voters. Nigel Farage, for one reason or another, is deeply unpopular amongst voters who may yet share some or many of his views. Reform is seen by many as a successor party to UKIP, which, for now, imposes an upper limit on what they can achieve at the ballot box. If their aim is to form a government, they may do better by letting the Conservatives win back the Home Counties and Scotland while they win back the Red Wall and Wales. As a majority or minority partner in a Conservative/Reform coalition, they could make sure that the next centre-right government governs as one.
Politicians and commentators on the right of British politics should resolve to focus on the big picture in 2025 — defeating Labour at the next election and laying the groundwork for a future centre-right government. Party politics and personal rivalries should be put to one side and both parties should let the other play to its own strengths.
