Tories must do one thing before they can even think about beginning to rebuild

Before they can even begin to rebuild, the Tories need to reach an agreed verdict among themselves about why they have suffered such a terrible defeat.

There has yet to be any analysis of whether the right or the left of the Conservative party has better survived the cull, but that could have a key influence on how the parliamentary party chooses to interpret the message sent to them by voters.

On the “One Nation” side of the equation, people like Tom Tugendhat may argue that trying to woo socially conservative working-class voters in the red wall constituencies of the Midlands and the north, as well as focusing heavily on older voters was a mistake. This wing of the party will want to push hard for a move back to the so-called “centre ground” Conservatism of David Cameron to try and win over voters lost to Labour and the Lib Dems and win back prosperous Home Counties seats.

But the right of the party, spearheaded during the last parliament by the likes of Kemi Badenoch and Suella Braverman, will point out that by far the biggest loss of 2019 Tory voters was to the Reform party of Nigel Farage, which now poses an existential threat. And those people did not defect because they thought Rishi Sunak had been too right-wing. Quite the opposite, in fact.

How to quell the Reform threat and restore an effective monopoly over right-of-centre voters will be a key early challenge. If Farage can point to the Tories still not being prepared to take tough up very tough stances on controlling immigration volumes – both legal and illegal – then he may build even more momentum after this breakthrough.

Settling on a compelling new leader is also a crucial challenge for the Tories. If they get that wrong then the chances of an early comeback are tiny and they may find they have even further to fall.

One consolation for them is the knowledge that we live in a highly volatile political era. In the middle of 2019, Farage’s Brexit party smashed them in the European elections and briefly overtook them in national polls. But by the end of that year they had swept to a majority of 80 in a general election.

In the interim they found themselves a big personality leader in Boris Johnson, who was able to inspire support across the class spectrum and from all shades of Tory-leaning voters.

Another thought that bruised Tories may cling to is that they governed through a period of multiple crises – implementing Brexit, the Covid pandemic and a war in Europe that set off an energy price spike. There is little reason to think that a government of a different political complexion will be immune from further such crises over the next few years, or cope with them any better.

But no longer can the Conservative & Unionist Party be confident that a pendulum will one day swing back to it as of right. Its MPs are going to have to fight for the future as they have never fought before.