Conservatives in Crisis: Is There Any Way Back for History’s Most Successful Political Party?

Image Credits: No. 10 via Wikimedia

As another week in Westminster draws to a close, even hardened political observers may feel a flicker of sympathy for Kemi Badenoch. Each tentative recovery in the polls is swiftly stifled, strangled in its infancy by a fresh bout of bad news. A strong performance at PMQs is overshadowed by Robert Jenrick’s resignation; a brief moment of control over the media narrative gives way under a torrent of endless defections. Progress is made, only to be swiftly undone.

Yet this cycle of slight advance and continuous retreat is not simply the product of bad faith or wounded pride. Rather, it reflects a deeper problem within the Conservative Party: an inability to answer a once settled question, “what exactly is the point of the Tories anymore?”

At first, this question may sound absurd. The Conservatives have been part of Britain’s political furniture for so long that their continued existence is often taken for granted. Yet, with Labour under Starmer seizing the mantle of competence, and Reform under Farage marching onwards on the right, it is no longer clear what function this current iteration of the Conservative Party performs.

Historically, the party has largely been able to resist falling into incoherence. Not by remaining ideologically consistent; after all, how much do a Jacobite Tory from the 18th century, a protectionist Tory from the 19th century, and a free market Thatcherite in the 20th century really have in common? No, instead, the party's survival has rested on two enduring pillars.

First, a close identification with Britain’s core institutions, the Crown, the Church, Parliament, and later the Union itself, allowing the party to present itself as the defenders of tradition and broadly a safe pair of hands. Second, is a remarkable capacity to absorb political change, recasting reform as preservation and upheaval as continuity.

In 1846, the Tories were divided, exhausted, and left championing the electorally toxic policy of protectionism. Their best talent, and entire front bench team, had defected from the party, leaving those left an army with no generals; a fighter with no head. Again in 1906, the party suffered an electoral catastrophe on a scale that would not be matched until 2024. Elements of the party, headed up by Joseph Chamberlain, were in open revolt, attempting to shift party policy to an unpopular right-wing alternative.

In both these instances, Tory survival was not inevitable - indeed, ask the pundits and the prophets of the time and they would’ve told you the party was finished, consigned to the dustbin of history alongside the Levelers and Chartists. However, in both these instances, the party survived by executing massive policy-reversals whilst maintaining the facade of continuity. Voters hate protectionism? We’ll ditch it! Voters dislike tariff reform? We’re the party of stability and free trade again!

Yet, in 2026, the party seems unable to execute such an about-turn and save itself from the pit of irrelevance. The party’s traditional identification with Britain’s core institutions has frayed, not because those institutions have vanished, but because the Conservatives no longer convincingly speak for them. Years of strained, often transactional relationships with Parliament, the Union, and the machinery of the state have eroded the party’s claim to be their natural steward. In earlier crises, policy reversals were tolerated, even welcomed, because they were enacted by a party trusted to safeguard continuity. Today, similar manoeuvres risk appearing improvised or opportunistic, precisely because that institutional authority has been lost.

So then, is there a way back for the Conservatives? No, at least not on its present course. If the Conservatives remain decidedly backwards facing, haunted by the spectre of Thatcherism and unable to adopt new ideas, it will die. But, if Badenoch can develop a convincing argument as to what the Conservatives are seeking to conserve, whilst meeting the challenges of the age with the tools of today, there might just be a way back for the world's most successful political party.