Conservatives must remember why they won in 2019 if they want to triumph again

The Conservative Party’s electoral coalition was fundamentally altered by the 2019 election, and its voters now demand a different form of conservatism than the one that won in the 1980s, Will Tanner writes for the House Magazine. He writes:

“The Conservatives won in 2019 not only by promising to deliver Brexit and deny Jeremy Corbyn a shot at government, but by assembling a different coalition of people and places than they had ever done before. The post-2019 Tory bloc is more working class, more geographically diverse and more economically insecure than any in living memory. Indeed, Boris Johnson won a majority (51 per cent) of skilled workers, a plurality (41 per cent) of unskilled occupations, and a majority of apprentices, school leavers and people with no qualifications whatsoever.

“Not only did the Red Wall fall but the entire centre of gravity of conservatism shifted. Before the exit poll, the geographic midpoint of Conservative-held seats was Buckingham; the midpoint of the party’s 2019 gains was in Sheffield, 100 miles to the north. And they were different economically too: average wages in 2019 Conservative gains are on average five per cent lower than Labour seats. Of the bottom quarter of seats in Great Britain with the lowest earnings, more are now held by the Conservatives than Labour.”

You can read the full article here.

If you are interested in reading more, Onward’s landmark study of the 2019 General Election, No Turning Back, is available here.