In a Fight for the Right the Party Should Address Jenrick’s Parting Shot Not Dismiss It

There’s been an explosion of opinion about the state of the Conservative party since last week’s sacking of Robert Jenrick and his defection to Reform. An act that in the public eye has initially benefitted Kemi Badenoch more than him, Farage, or the Tories.

But it’s early days.

U-turner Starmer may jibe Badenoch about getting rid of a rival but if he did the same he’d hardly have a Cabinet.

Frustratingly there’s some mighty issues to hammer the Government over, to which all of this ‘psychodrama’ is a distraction. The awful Chagos deal we didn’t do. The approval of the Chinese embassy we didn’t approve and damaging tariffs on the UK because Trump has the hump over Greenland.

While global matters reclaim the headlines the battle for occupation of the right of British politics rumbles on. The world has demonstrably changed, now all parties are having to change with it. So can they?

As soon as the Tories started coming second, just in a series of polls – though trailing Reform – this battle was inevitable. There are still voices who despair of the need for a fight on the right. Esther McVey, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Dan Hannan have argued this.

This seems unlikely right now under the noise of opening salvoes.

Reform are firing the same rounds they’ve used since they led the polls to gaslight Conservatives into giving up. They wanted to ‘destroy’ the Tories months ago and said so. If it’s not the supposed army of Lib-Dems-within stopping Badenoch doing anything, it’s a ‘surrender to the wets’. If it’s not ‘I don’t like what they say’, it’s ‘they haven’t said anything’.

No ‘sorry’ will be enough; no discussion to be had. Unconditional surrender is the only offer.

Reformers who until recently were Tories talk of ‘traitors’ and demand voters ‘never forgive or forget.’ It’s loudest when the Conservatives are landing blows on Labour – especially on the economy – because Reform know the party they insist was dead, isn’t and the economy is their weak spot. Three of them now vie to be Chancellor.

Badenoch insists the Tories aren’t going to walk off the pitch or pivot to the left but they should avoid looking complacent. Jenrick’s parting shot was a deconstruction of his old party under the watchful eyes of his new leader. Badenoch has carried on regardless with the business of opposing the Government but Jenrick’s challenge must not be dismissed but addressed. Not in tit-for-tat soundbites but treating it internally as the mother of all ‘red teaming’ exercises.

The public dislike the “X has defected – here’s some dirt” response and besides, working within the Conservative party for months having already decided you’ll leave tells its own story. But denying Jenrick has strong political abilities or that Reform won’t benefit from having them is pointless. Nine months ago Farage conceded Reform needed experience. Now he’s got some. Though it’s surely hard to credibly trash the record of one party and be stuffed to the gills with people who were part of it.

However a challenge has to be met.

Central to Rob’s Reform pitch was not only that the Tory party hasn’t changed – despite having played a yearlong role in changing it – but that it cannot change. He can’t have believed that until recently. For months he wanted to lead that change convinced it could be done. He only shied from that when Badenoch demonstrated an increasing grip on her job. His real accusation is therefore, ‘it can’t change… under her.’

Those who agree with that will leave. She’s told them to go. I suspect the waiting room for the ‘last train to Ticeville’ is not empty. Now, it’s numbers that matter. The question, for Conservatives who stay to fight, is not ‘can the party change?’ but ‘has it, and will it, change enough?’

They should be as wary of thinking it has, as they must be convincing it will.

If anyone thinks it has changed enough then Henry Hill is right in suggesting they “don’t have answers and his departure has encouraged a belief that they don’t need them.”

In the days since, the leadership have insisted they do have the answers. They must keep providing proof to their own, and the electorate.

Defections breed doubt.

Jenrick’s other charge played on that. He questioned his former colleagues ability to comprehend the scale of change required. Anger won’t build anything better than ‘business as usual’ could. Both are paths to oblivion. Badenoch’s promised ‘red meat restaurant’ needs to offer big bold dishes and of a kind the party of the recent past would have baulked at attempting.

Stamp duty abolished, business rates cut, leaving the ECHR, cutting the welfare budget, a refreshed and tougher immigration policy are all good starters, but many Tories are still awaiting the promised steak. They’re hungry three years shy of an election and won’t wait forever. They’ve just watched Jenrick loudly complain that the service is terrible, before running to the new fast food joint next door. They need convincing to stay seated because it will be worth it.

Mark Littlewood Director of Popular Conservatism has said:

“The Reform approach is to essentially broadcast the broad, desired destination and then work out how to get there. The Conservative approach is to assess the viability of the journey before heading out of the front door”

We still don’t know if Reform know how to get there, or like Starmer won’t bother to explain because they never found out.

They say we need to rearm, be stronger on defence but can’t tell us how they’d pay for it, or deploy it effectively, especially if half the Navy and Royal Marines are in the channel doing whatever it is they have in mind for small boats.

The Conservatives should think carefully about the viability, cost, outcomes and delivery of the huge things that need to be done, but also broadcast more about what they are and how they’d do it. If you’ve decided not to tell sell unicorns then define yourself by the bold stuff you can and will do. But even that’s not enough. In Andrew Gilligan’s article about the mess Labour have got into over the Hillsborough law he wrote:

“It’s not government’s actions, but its inability to act – its inability to fix problems – that most people mind more.”

The apology Reform demand Conservatives make ‘on their knees, begging for forgiveness’ is an aggressive pimped up version of a real voter vibe. Despite the false contention that ‘everything was rubbish for fourteen years’; there are things we should regret and apologise for even whilst committing to putting right.

Henry Hill hit on this on Monday. “The ultimate problem is that the public is not obliged to think coherently about government, and is increasingly furious about the accumulated consequences of its own preferences”

The Conservative government tried to manage a status quo the mechanics of which had long ago become unsustainable. The fact that Labour are failing faster in the same way, and Reform can’t tell us how they’d avoid it – does not let Conservatives off the hook.

They should make economic revolution the foundation of their response. That’s where they hold the high ground. Their answer can’t look anything like before and may be hard to sell, because here’s ‘the truth’: to really tackle the fundamentals they’ll have to risk saying things that are unpopular. Be ‘unpopulist’.

True too, Reform aren’t explaining anything on the economy that won’t land them in the same malodorous creek as Labour. However we’ve not seen a complete Conservative answer on the scale and bravery required to reclaim the paddle. That’s the challenge Jenrick set whilst torching his past.

It’s either ‘challenge accepted’ or it will end in ashes.

Conservatives mustn’t be cowed by the continuous social media assault but get on with the job. The warning shots of the ‘Battle for the Right’ mean what they offer has to be big, bold and brave. They must be louder about the difference and think very carefully about who it must appeal to.

For the troops in both trenches there’s another warning:

If Farage doesn’t like sharing and Jenrick doesn’t do second fiddle, then the Conservatives find the idea of extinction an anathema.

The thing about revolutions is they often eat their own children.