Sir Mel Stride has warned Conservative MPs not to risk derailing the party with leadership challenges, insisting the Tories are regaining stability.
Less than a year after Kemi Badenoch was elected leader, the shadow chancellor warned The Independent on the eve of the party conference that people "will never forgive" the Conservatives if they resume their "self indulgent" leadership fights.
It follows a dreadful first year out of office for the party, which has kept losing ground in the polls despite Labour's problems. In contrast, Nigel Farage and Reform UK have swept to power and are now the most likely candidates to oppose the government in the upcoming election.
The demise of the Conservatives has sparked conjecture that Ms. Badenoch may be seriously challenged for the position of leader, with Sir James Cleverly and Robert Jenrick, her shadow cabinet colleagues, predicted to be the front-runners.
“I think we've got to hold our nerve,”
he said.
“Look, nobody finds it comfortable to be where we are in the polls.
Nobody finds it comfortable to have lost the last election as decisively as we did and the difficulties we had in the more recent local elections. So I understand totally why people are uncomfortable with that, but what we've got to do is hold our nerve.
We've got a clear plan. There will be a lot more detail that will be coming out of conference very shortly. And the most important thing we can do now is preserve our unity and start to build back. And I think we are building back actually serving as an effective opposition.”
However, leading polling expert Sir John Curtice warned that the Tories were facing an “existential crisis”, while Mr Farage had made a “lot of progress” with Reform.
He told the Independent that while the Tories had become so untrustworthy that even those who had voted for them in 2019 were as likely to believe that Reform would provide a capable government as the Conservatives, Reform had "taken the coalition" of voters that had propelled the party to power under Boris Johnson's leadership.
He went on to say that any leadership challenge is futile since the party lacks a "Boris figure."
“Where is the Boris figure sitting on the frontbench?”
he asked.
“The Tories were in deep trouble in the spring of 2019 as well, but then along came Boris. But where is the Boris figure for them now?”
But in a sign that Sir Mel plans to answer some of the party’s critics regarding a lack of policy, he has pledged that he will be promoting “an unshackled economy” with low pro-growth taxes.
He said:
“I think we are beginning to get the message through that Labour are messing up the economy. The Reform Party are economic fantasists who will promise lots of things, including on the economy, without any serious plan as to how they're going to deliver it, and in uncertain and very difficult economic times, it has fallen to the Conservative Party to be the grown ups in the room to set out a plan in which we clearly are living within our means.”
But he believes he has the solutions.
“We're under new leadership, and what Kemi and I recognize is we have got to get back to that kind of unshackled economy where taxes are leaning into growth and are lower, where we can look at our skills offering tackle the welfare bill.”
What prompted Stride's warning and who is being targeted?
Sir Mel Stride's alert followed continuing difficulty and speculation in the Conservative Party on the future leadership. His warning is directed at Conservative MPs and party members that have contemplated running for present leadership; he suggested that such actions could reverse the party's recent progress.
This warning appears when the party is trying to overcome its election losses and fractures. Stride is seeking to dissuade "self-indulgent" leadership contests which he believes would put off voters and would tarnish the party's reputation.
He is warning colleagues to exercise collective unity and stability instead of creating a leadership vacuum which he fears will hurt the party's prospects of attracting back voter confidence and creating electoral success.