As we enter the week of the first big political test since the disastrous general election of 2024, it seems clear that both Reform and the Lib Dems are going to profit from the electorate’s frustration with both the Conservative opposition and the Labour government. We are no longer a nation of just two dominant parties, and the Conservatives must adapt and change to address this if we are going to return to significance.

Buyer’s remorse accounts for the disillusionment with the Labour government as the pocket-hitting effects of their ill thought-through and vindictive policies become clear.

However, the Conservative Party, rejected so emphatically in 2024, has more puzzling questions to answer. 

I am an Association Chair and in 2024 I stood for Parliament (you can read about my perplexing journey as a candidate here). My experiences inspired me to stand, albeit unsuccessfully, for the Chairmanship of the National Convention (and if, like many, you don’t know what the National Convention is and does, I wrote about that too, here). Offering my time, my energy, my talents and my money to the Party, consistently and over many years, I had seen first hand that there was a sense of maintaining a status quo that was failing us; I could see that real change was needed, and fast, in order to shore up the rump of the Party, to halt the decline and then to rebuild back to being a party of government. 

Now over six months on from the National Convention elections, we must urgently consider: what are the questions that need to be answered? And how much progress have we made in doing so? Until we recognise the questions, we will never find the right answers. And not only that, we need our voluntary party leaders to want to ask the questions urgently, and to hold themselves and the Party Board to account.

To me, the questions are: what change is needed, in order for the Party to provide a government based on uncontroversial Conservative policies, and have we made any progress to address this?

To begin with, let’s consider the need for policy. Quite rightly, the Party was cautioned to take time over formulating  policy, but as I tweeted back in December, it is one thing to develop a deliverable manifesto for a general election, but quite another to give a clear indication of the Party’s position. Position fills the space between establishing our principles and presenting manifesto-ready policy. And let’s face it, agreeing on our principles shouldn’t be a long, hard job. Don’t we know them already? The electorate surely does, as our Party’s perceived failure in government to provide proper Conservative policy is at the heart of why former Conservative voters looked elsewhere on the ballot paper come election day. We left a void, and we need to urgently fill that void and give disaffected voters, who desire a Conservative government, the time to be convinced by the Party again. And that requires clarity of position at the very least.

Neither has time been on our side for too much navel-gazing. Yes, the next general election is still years away, but this week’s significant local elections are taking place across much of the country less than a year after the general election defeat. There is a sense that these elections, and the corresponding urgency of pulling our Party together again, were overlooked after the general election. Perhaps this indicates the parliament-orientated mindset of the Party Board (where the true power – and therefore responsibility – in our Party resides), or perhaps simply political inexperience allowed for this lack of awareness. Certainly, local Associations knew all about the urgency of the elections heading their way. There is a clear lesson: local elections need to be factored into our strategic timetable in the centre, as well as out in the local field. And listen to Associations. They are more experienced and sensible than they are often given credit for.

Thursday’s elections look set to be a humiliation for our Party, which actually means humiliation for the hardworking councillors who are going to lose their seats, and of the determined activists who give up their time to doggedly deliver leaflets and knock on doors to canvass. Time, personal expense and general goodwill is being put into these local elections by candidates and activists. But are these resources effectively used? Will they have a proportionate effect on the outcome? Campaign methods have barely changed over recent years, despite the move into the digital age. The need for expensive and wasteful leaflets has diminished, as has the appropriateness of intrusive door-knocking. Yet we are urged on to deliver more leaflets and letters, to knock on more doors, to show that we are part of the team, with particular pressure put on those wishing to pursue a political career. Aspirant candidates – serious people with significant experience in life – are told that they will be judged on whether they delivered enough leaflets, often in some distant constituency, and whether they spent enough time on the ‘campaign trail’. Well from experience, I can tell you that it is never enough, and perhaps activists should be asking back: what good does it do? Certainly in the last general election, it did very little good by the criterion that matters: electorally. Sadly, all indications suggest that this May, few will feel that time spent delivering leaflets, often having travelled to another constituency to offer ‘mutual aid’, was particularly worthwhile, once Friday 2nd May dawns. Who benefits by pressurising the ambitious into the yoke of outmoded and ineffective campaigning, that simply serves to use up their spare time and their energy? Another question requiring an answer.  This is a status quo that must change or we are, as a Party, condemned to failure. 

A review of what led to the defeat of 2024 got underway in the general election’s aftermath, but we are yet to hear its conclusions. However, the panel carrying out the review are Party figures, some very senior. I believe that the only way to convince members that the review has been carried out fearlessly and without favour is for the Party to commission a truly independent review. We must be able to move forwards with the utmost confidence in the review’s findings, or it simply isn’t worth doing.

Until we address these questions around the direction of our policy and the effectiveness of our campaigning, we simply cannot improve our Party’s fortunes. We must urgently fill the policy void and offer firm positions that can convince voters that we have a good, reliable and also inspirational plan. At the same time, we must stop treating our activists as cheery, good-natured cannon-fodder, and think realistically about how we campaign now. The electorate has changed and expects any marketing message – including political messages – to be delivered in a modern format. I have done masses of this type of campaigning myself, and it breaks my heart to see well-intentioned activists urging each other on on the WhatsApp groups, and photos of those gathering to spend their time knocking on doors. Will they look back on the campaign for the locals as time well spent?  We will find out. But if they feel that their worn out shoe leather and energy levels have been spent for nothing, that the locals demonstrate that the sense of failed status quo that led us to general election defeat in 2024 remains, how can we expect them to continue? I would love our exhausted activists and candidates to demand better from our Party Board. In fact, I think they will simply find better things to do with their spare time and the status quo of failure will persist. And so will our Party’s decline. So let’s address these questions and put the Party back on a path of inspiration and purpose, so we can do the right thing for our country and win our way back to government, be it local or national. 

© 2025 Joanna Reeves, all rights reserved.