Joining Reform may be a smart move for Lee Anderson

Richard Tice of Reform may not be the most charismatic party leader, but he has impeccable timing. The ink was hardly dry on Lee Anderson and Brendan Clarke-Smith’s joint resignation letter following their support for Robert Jenrick’s amendments to the Rwanda Bill, before he openly propositioned them to defect.

Predictably Anderson told Christopher Hope straight away on GB News that he was not for turning. But things can change fast in politics. The idea that at least some of the New Conservatives should jump ship actually makes more sense than you might think, whether you look at things from the point of view of the people concerned, the Tory party or the country as a whole.

The first point is an obvious one: the Conservatives’ current dire poll results reflect no love for Labour. Rumour has it that substantial numbers of voters in the midlands and north would struggle even to name the opposition leader. For those who know who he is, Keir Starmer’s wooden presentation and inability to answer embarrassing questions convincingly makes even Liz Truss look charismatic by comparison. Rather, what we have is a feeling that the Tories and Labour are probably about as bad as each other, but that at least the latter might be a bit more competent.

In Red Wall seats, this point matters. Whatever the official Tory line, the outspoken views of the New Conservatives who sit for them actually do tend to chime very neatly with those of their constituents. In Lee Anderson’s own Nottinghamshire seat, for example, it seems some 55 per cent support his hard line on immigration as expressed on Monday night.

What will hold the incumbents back in such places is nothing personal, but rather their association with the administration of the last 13 years. Almost universally the Tory party is now seen as ineffectual on the things that matter and obsessed with irrelevancies such as human rights or Net Zero. Were MPs to cut this link and represent a new party on a pragmatic ticket of promoting the actual concerns of their constituents, large numbers could well back them rather than falling back on Labour as the least worst option. In short, were these MPs to join Reform, this would become a very serious headache indeed for Labour.

Secondly, such an event would ultimately benefit the Conservative party by forcing it to face the future. One can see why, after his election as party leader in 2005, David Cameron deliberately wooed the comfortable high-tax, high-spending, socially-liberal establishment who had previously leant towards Labour and the Lib Dems. It was this that helped power the victories of 2010 and 2015.

But Cameron’s centrist move was ultimately short-sighted. It held back political innovation and alienated many traditional Conservative voters. While it may have worked when times were relatively easy, it spelt trouble when adversity appeared in the form of Brexit, and later Covid and the post-2019 economic difficulties.

This week too, many of Rishi’s problems have stemmed from the power of so-called One Nation Tories of this kind. They prefer not to rock the establishment boat and regard a scrupulous adherence to their view of international law and human rights as frankly more important than any attempt to give voters what they want on issues such as irregular migration. If it takes the loss of a number of previously loyal but now exasperated MPs to show that the party needs to deal with this problem rather than trying to be kind, centrist and uncontroversial, this can only be a good thing.

Were ex-Tories to actually win seats for Reform there would be at least two big benefits for the country. One is that fewer voters would feel politically homeless. Many with socially conservative views, whether on migration, education, the culture wars or a myriad of other issues, have up until now tended to vote Tory for lack of anywhere else to go. This time, faced with a Conservative party becoming increasingly unconservative and a Labour party that stands for very little at all, they will very likely stay at home and let the latter in by default. A party with an original conservative agenda but none of the baggage of the Conservatives would give them, and one suspects also a number of Labour voters, a much more comfortable home.

The second benefit is connected. Labour may well win by default this year. But the result is likely to be an unwholesome combination of increased tax and uncontrolled spending, increased trade union power, more restrictions on speech in the form of hate crime laws and more stifling equality laws. No-one wants this, but people like this inept and increasingly fractious Tory party even less. An alternative party that was anti-Labour and would oppose such measures might have very distinct attractions.

It probably would not be enough to prevent a Labour win this time around. But, in comparison to a humiliated and largely ineffectual Conservative opposition desperately looking for ways to make itself less unpopular and more relevant, it would do a much better job at making life more difficult for a Labour government. If you like that idea, you should be discreetly rooting for Reform and gently whispering to any Conservative MP you may know.