The Conservatives need to embrace the Centre Right

 

Chris talks about the death of the centre right, but I would argue the centre right in the UK and US died a long time ago, with the advent of neoliberalism. The centre right that I can still dimly remember in the UK was a Conservative party that accepted the need for a sizable state, strong trade unions, the nationalisation of essential utilities and high rates of taxation on top incomes. These were the governments of MacMillan and the the views of the Tory ‘Wets’ that were horrified by the unemployment Thatcher’s monetarism created.

Now you could argue that since those days what is thought of as the centre has shifted, so what is centre right now is different from what was centre right in the 1960s, 70s and early 80s. That is true to some extent. But I think the real misconception comes because what many currently mean by centre right is much better described as the socially liberal right. Things are much clearer if we think in two dimensions, separating (as far as possible) the economic and social.

Have a look at the new Prosper group within the Conservative party. Under ‘what we believe’ we have “free markets give consumers choice and foster innovation”, “businesses create that growth, not government” and “too much regulation stifles growth”. So where does this group believe in things that might upset Kemi Badenoch? It is with things like “we should allow people with the skills our economy needs to come here” and “we should reduce barriers to trade, especially with our closest neighbours”. It is socially conservative populism, introduced into the Conservative party by Johnson and Farage, that Prosper along with one nation conservatives want to stand apart from.

It also seems clear from Badenoch that she doesn’t want a broad church Conservative Party that includes people that might be part of the Prosper group. On social issues like immigration she is in a race with Reform to see who can promise to deport the most. She wants to take the UK out of the ECHR, and she wants to repeal the Climate Change Act. In terms of policy it is getting very difficult to tell Reform and the Conservative party apart.

To many this seems crazy. Why abandon the centre ground if you want to win elections? But under one particular view of where voters currently are this positioning makes some sense. Suppose we believe that the electorate is increasingly split into two blocs, left liberal and the socially conservative right, and that nearly all the changes in party popularity come from movements within rather than between those blocs. There is a lot of evidence to support that idea. If this was absolutely true, with no voters crossing the divide between the two blocs, then Badenoch’s strategy makes some sense.

The reason why is nicely laid out in a recent post by Peter Kellner, where he reminds us of how two ice cream vans might position themselves on a long beach front. While it would be best for those on the beach if these two vans positioned themselves well apart from each other, competition will put them side by side in the middle of the beach. If one van takes pity on those at the their end of the beach and moves closer to them, they will lose some customers in the middle of the beach who are now closer to the other van, even if the other van doesn’t move. But the other van will move, to be right next to the van that first moved, capturing even more of the beach market. Using economics jargon, both vans next to each other in the middle of the beach is an equilibrium.

So if voters in the socially conservative bloc only ever vote for one of the two socially conservative parties, then it makes sense for Badenoch to put her party as close as she can to Reform. Like the two ice cream vans, they will be next to each other in policy terms. In particular because Reform is pretty socially conservative, so will the Conservative party. Any social liberals in the party should either keep quiet or leave.

Note, however, that exactly the same reasoning applies to those in the socially liberal left bloc. If we ignore the Liberal Democrats for just a moment, then Labour should be adopting policies very close to the ideas promoted by the Green’s Zack Polanski. Which they clearly are not doing.

The reason why Badenoch’s strategy is wrong is that not all electoral movements take place within both blocs. Most might have done in recent years, but even then not all. It used to be the case that we had two dominant parties, and elections were one or lost by voters moving between these two parties. Part of the reason for that is that many voters position themselves close to the centre in both economic and social terms, and these voters will switch between the socially conservative right wing bloc and the socially liberal left wing bloc at each election. [2]

Which is where we do need to talk about the Liberal Democrat party. Most of their seats, including those won at the last election, are where the Conservatives are their main challengers. The majority are in what used to be the Conservative’s southern heartlands. As a result, in economic policy terms the Liberal Democrats are much more right wing than the preferences of their membership. But in social policy terms they are liberal. They are filling the gap left by the Conservative party’s march towards social conservatism, just as the Green’s growing popularity is a result of Labour’s attempt to sound more like Reform than the socially liberal party most of its voters want it to be.

What about the argument that the Conservatives have lost far more votes to Reform than the Liberal Democrats or Labour, so their focus should be on Reform. While this is undoubtedly true, the analysis above was about policy positions. There is a big difference between ‘focusing on Reform voters' and copying their policies. Neither Labour or the Conservatives have learnt that the more they talk about socially conservative issues like immigration and asylum in a way that seems very similar to the way Reform talks about these issues, the more they boost Reform’s support rather than their own. Farage owns these issues, because the Conservatives are tainted by the ‘Boris wave’ of post-Covid immigration and because the boats will keep coming under Labour.

In contrast, as Owen Winter outlines here, the Conservatives are ideally placed to take Reform voters who are on the economic centre or right, as well as centre or right wing voters on economic issues who are in the centre on social issues, because of rising concerns over higher taxes. On economic issues they have (surprisingly given their period in government) a relatively positive image among voters. (Liberal Democrats policy positions outside elections are less well known.) So Badenoch should be embracing the Prosper group, not giving them a cold shoulder. They could even paint recent defections in a positive light. [1]

You can make the same point by looking at attitudes to Trump. Badenoch has largely followed Reform in supporting Trump, and Trump-like policies like deportation. Yet Trump is disliked by Conservative voters even more than Labour voters dislike Trump. Many Reform voters have a negative attitude towards Trump. (Even among Conservative party members, more dislike than like Trump.) Badenoch could gain votes by using Trump and Farage’s attachment to him to attack Reform, but she doesn’t.

The same point can be made another way. As I have noted before, the main political parties in the UK are neatly lining up with the four segments of economic and social policy space. The Greens are socially liberal and left wing, the LibDems are socially liberal and (mildly) right wing, Labour are socially conservative and (mildly) left wing. The anomaly is that we have two major political parties in the socially conservative, right wing space. Both want to eliminate the other. Farage’s comparative advantage is on socially conservative issues, and Conservatives are stronger on economic issues. The Conservatives should play to their strengths, not their weaknesses, and set policy on social issues with one eye to voters in the centre.

For these reasons, Badenoch should be embracing politicians like those in the Prosper Group, not giving them a cold shoulder. If she continues to pursue her current course the more socially liberal but economically right wing Conservative voters the politicians of Prosper represent will not disappear, but instead they will move in even greater numbers to the Liberal Democrats. [3]

Does any of this matter to voters in the other bloc: left wing socially liberal voters? A more broad church Conservative party will be a tougher opposition to both the Liberal Democrats and Labour, and will therefore mean a government from the left liberal bloc is less likely to be elected. For that reason Labour and the LibDems will be happy with Badenoch's cold shoulder for Prosper. But there is a counter argument.  As I have said many times, the biggest threat the UK faces is a socially conservative populist government in Trump’s image. That will happen if Reform wins, or if the Conservatives win at the cost of turning themselves into a socially conservative populist party in Trump’s image. One danger is that a Conservative leadership that does their best to ostracise more socially liberal Conservatives will mean one of these two outcomes will occur. 

[1] Many many years ago when I was working in H.M.Treasury I left my CV in a photocopier. Luckily a friend found it. On these grounds I might feel some sympathy for someone whose mislaid documents were used against him, but I cannot feel any sympathy for someone like Robert Jenrick.

[2] Labour and the Conservatives are making the opposite mistake right now, although it means they end up going in the same direction. Labour are too preoccupied with voters switching blocs (Labour to Reform or the Tories), which means they are haemorrhaging votes to the Greens and LibDems. In contrast the Conservatives are trying to match policies with those in the same bloc, and therefore are losing votes in the centre (and particularly in key seats to the LibDems).

[3] Why is Badenoch making this mistake? I think part of the answer is Brexit. Brexit was a policy largely supported by social conservatives and opposed by social liberals. As long as the Conservatives continue to support Brexit despite all the evidence that it was a disaster, and oppose Labour’s attempts to soften its negative impact on UK prosperity and international influence, then they tie themselves to Reform and against the liberal right of Prosper. Given what Johnson did when he took over the Conservative party, it will probably require more than one election defeat to change the Conservative party’s position on Brexit. Another reason is the defection of Conservative MPs and former MPs to Reform. When your constant worry as leader is yet another Tory defection to Reform, it is very difficult not to think that any attempt to distance your party’s policies from Reform’s will only encourage further defections. But of course yet another reason may simply be that Badenoch, knowingly or not, is putting her own policy preferences ahead of party popularity.