Why James Cleverly's failed leadership bid makes Tory lurch to right more likely

Tories hoping that the party’s response to Reform UK’s general election showing would not be a lurch to the right will now be anxiously looking for signs of reassurance from the remaining candidates. Certainly, it would be a considerable comedown if the party sometimes described as the most successful election-winning machine in the world was to start copying its upstart rival.

Although Reform only won five seats, they received more than 4.1 million votes so they are a greater political force than they might currently appear. However, it has long been true that British elections are won or lost on the centre-ground.

Populist tendencies

Drifting off to the right may simply convince liberal Conservatives to start voting Liberal Democrat instead. This could result in a fundamental reshaping of British politics, which last happened with the rise of the Labour party and the decline of the old Liberal party after the First World War.

Both Jenrick and Badenoch have populist tendencies. Jenrick has railed against the “metropolitan elite” – a right-wing echo of Jeremy Corbyn’s leftist rhetoric – and pledged to reduce net migration to tens of thousands. In her conference speech, Badenoch said: “We promised to lower immigration. It went up. Why? Because the Treasury said high immigration was good for the economy. But we knew it was not good for our country.”

Ideological notions

Such remarks will spark concern in business circles, particularly in sectors struggling to fill vacancies, and at the many leading universities which depend heavily on foreign students for income. If the Conservatives become a party willing to do things that are bad for the economy because of ideological notions about what is “good for our country”, can they still claim to be the ‘party of business’?

With its opposition to immigration overriding all other concerns, Reform is effectively a single-policy party. The last thing Britain needs is another one.