Conservative problems long pre-dated Sunak’s leadership

There are not many precedents in modern elections for the ruling party to lose half of its vote. Fianna Fáil’s drubbing following the financial crash in 2011 was one, further back the Progressive Conservatives in Canada lost 154 of its 156 seats in the 1993 Canadian federal election and were never the same force again.

Both results were driven by an angry electorate and the Tories similarly faced a wrathful public.

Labour won the election, but it was more correct to say that the Conservatives lost it. Labour’s vote only increased by 1.6 percentage points, the Tory vote almost halved from the 43.6 per cent gained by Boris Johnson in 2019 to the 23.7 per cent in this election.

The party lost eight sitting cabinet ministers including two would-be future leaders, Penny Mordaunt and Grant Shapps.

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In his resignation speech outgoing leader Rishi Sunak said he would take responsibility for the electoral drubbing. He called the election without consulting his party and the election announcement made in the pouring rain became a metaphor for the campaign.

[ UK election: High profile casualties include Rees-Mogg and Truss ]

The party’s problems, though, long predated his leadership. Five prime ministers, Brexit, the Brexit wars of Theresa May’s tenure, Partygate, Liz Truss’s disastrous 45-day premiership and Boris Johnson’s serial venality all contributed to a day of reckoning without precedent in British electoral history.

With just 119 MPs the Tory Party has been reduced to a rump. Many in the party conceded they only have themselves to blame. Defence secretary Grant Shapps, who as expected lost his Welywn-Hatfield seat, was forthright that the internal squabbling had put voters off the party.

“We have tried the patience of traditional Conservative voters with a propensity to create an endless political soap opera out of internal rivalries and divisions which have become increasingly entrenched.”

Similar sentiments were expressed by the chancellor of the exchequer Jeremy Hunt who, somewhat surprisingly, held his own seat in Godalming and Ash. “When you lose the trust of the electorate all that matters is having the courage and humility to ask yourself why so you can win it back again.” Will his party listen?

[ Mark Paul: Conservatives lost UK's landslide election just as much as Labour won it ]

The Reform party did huge electoral damage to the Conservatives. Between them, the two parties on the right had almost 38 per cent of the vote.

Election guru Prof John Curtice estimated that there were more than 170 former Conservative seats where the margin of victory was less than the vote Reform got in the election.

The Tories now face some fundamental questions about their future. Should it tack rightward to coax back some of the Reform voters who had deserted the party or risk alienating many centrist voters in doing so?

When Boris Johnson won an 80-seat majority in 2019 there was talk of him being prime minister until 2030. Now the party faces the rest of this decade in opposition.

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