In the aftermath of the General Election of 2024, the Conservative Party was urged to use its time in opposition wisely. Well, the proof is in the pudding. Predictably, last week’s local elections were a bloodbath. Good and hardworking Conservative councillors across the country lost their seats, and Conservative-led councils fell to Reform and the Lib Dems. We have not demonstrated that we are on a new track in a way that the electorate is willing to accept, trust or, indeed, pay any attention to. How on earth did we allow this to happen?

Although the reasons for the historic General Election defeat of 2024 are still live and rightly giving voters pause for thought, the new leadership of both the Party and the National Convention had a golden opportunity to impose some distance between what was rejected and a new dawn. Sadly, there is every impression that the opportunity stole up on those who lead us, and those who represent us to the Party Board.

When I stood for the Chairmanship of the National Convention (NC) in August and September last year (did I mention?), my conversations with NC members and supporters across the country always covered the importance of the May 2025 local elections. Not all areas had them; for instance, in London, where I am Association Chair for Holborn and St Pancras, we have local elections in May 2026 and are preparing for them now. However, any experienced Association leader or grassroots activist is well aware that, in local elections, voters are heavily influenced by their perception of the parties nationally. It made parliamentary sense that we took time to slow down, to resist the temptation to rush to rebuild and rebrand, in favour of a thorough consideration of our direction as a party.

However, in reality, the timing of the local elections was such that the collective memory held by the electorate had no reason to see us as anything other than the same party they rejected in 2024. I don’t believe voting in last week’s local elections was being used as a punishment, a protest vote, or a desire to give us the proverbial bloody nose. It was simply that we had not demonstrated that we had changed our course, and, logically, the electorate behaved in the same way as in the General Election. The sense was that the Party had not materially changed its offering, so the electorate didn’t change their vote.

In my campaign for the National Convention, I pointed out the folly of doing the same thing while expecting different results. If the status quo has failed us, we must change it. And indeed, Party members, and the electorate who would vote for us, want the failed status quo to change. They reject it, and so should the Party. Those of us who freely give our time, energy and money do it because we believe in uncontroversial Conservative principles, and we are motivated enough to wish to do all we can to convince the wider electorate that our Party is the way to achieve them for our nation. We are crying out for a rejection of what failed us and, instead, a renewal of ourselves as a party of Conservative government.

Our National Convention (i.e. membership) leader was elected last September, and our Party Leader in November. We should have scrambled to prepare for these local elections as a priority, to avoid the situation we now find ourselves in. The Party Board controls the Party. While others had their minds on parliamentary elections, the five National Convention officers on the Party Board had the responsibility of speaking up for the volunteers entering into the local campaigns, along with the Chair of the Conservative Councillors’ Association. Deep and wide electoral experience and expert skills of argumentation should be key qualities for leaders of the voluntary party. It is their responsibility to represent the membership at the highest level of the Party. Whatever happened in the boardroom as the months passed and the elections closed in, it made no difference to the failed status quo, as the local elections resulted in the same situation as the General Election: a wipeout of good, effective and committed elected representatives, to be replaced with an inexperienced alternative.

So what can we do now?

Well, the review of the General Election defeat is ongoing, with the date of its conclusion uncertain. Assuming it is still on track, I hope that it now expands its terms to include the recent local elections. Even better would be to scrap it and set up an independent review to allow the fullest confidence in its findings. A fearless, independent review is the kind of ‘renewal’ that will get us somewhere.

Next, we need to accept that local elections, which are only a year away in various parts of the country, are heavily influenced by national issues. If the Conservatives look like a party of national government, we may be given the opportunity to be a party of local government.

But we have no time to lose. What are Reform and the Lib Dems offering that might be considered uncontroversial Conservative policy, the sort that our members have every right to expect of a respectable, historic centre-right party? Upholding the law and our own sovereignty as a nation is at the forefront, so let’s lose no more time in considering leaving the ECHR and declare our intention to do so. A declared intention to push back the ‘woke’ agenda has been successful for Reform candidates such as former Conservative MP Dame Andrea Jenkyns; how about loudly proclaiming it for ourselves? For our potential voters, we are on the right track with our positions on net zero and protecting women’s rights and spaces, but we must consider the impact and ‘cut through’. How can we get our message heard more compellingly? Kemi has expressed excellent ideas in speeches and interviews with her controlled and considered delivery. But perhaps a demonstration of the bold, swashbuckling aspect of her personality would carry her words to a wider and more receptive audience. Ed Davey’s campaign antics have gone too far. I am absolutely not suggesting that Kemi skydives or engages in a dance-off to win the argument, but we need to ramp up the impact of her leadership dramatically. There is no time to waste.

Then there is campaigning itself. There is absolutely no doubt that candidates and activists pounded the streets with dogged determination, spending countless hours delivering leaflets, knocking on doors and attending hustings. In spite of this, many candidates were rejected, and they will be wondering whether those long, exhausting hours, away from their loved ones and taking up unlimited time and much expense, were worth it. Did Reform campaign like this? Were their campaigns personalised, localised and relentlessly delivered? Judging by the preponderance of leaflets featuring Nigel Farage, apparently not.

The quality of our local information is another aspect we must urgently consider. The ‘get out the vote’ phase of a campaign relies heavily on voting intentions (VIs). How many of us have found ourselves knocking up the opposition on polling day, the exact opposite of what we wish and need to do? VIs are largely gathered by activists and uploaded as a code into Votesource, our central database. Clearly, the requirement to understand the codes, the system, and the nuance of what is being said on the doorstep leaves a lot of room for error. Did Reform have millions of VIs to inform their campaign strategy? I doubt it, and yet look at their success. If all of those hours spent by Conservative activists gathering information have turned out to be for nothing, we need to find other ways to reach our potential voters. There is no point in maintaining a status quo of failure.

We are told that we have reached rock bottom. Well, here’s a worrying thought: what if we haven’t? We can’t change the past, but we must recognise that our actions from this very moment must be strong and inspiring, dramatic even, if we want our Party to survive and have a chance of building back to being trusted to govern again.

© Joanna Reeves 2025, all rights reserved.